


The Good Is Only Temporary

by Aviena



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: AU but not AU?, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Clothed Sex, Coffee Shops, Death, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Kissing, Lots of Angst, More tags later, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Undercover, Unrequited Love, Vaginal Fingering, did I say super hot kissing, jeez tags are hard, maybe requited love, need more angst tags, seriously, there is a happy ending guys believe me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:12:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 56,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6351145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviena/pseuds/Aviena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deacon's been sent backwards in time.</p><p>When he puts it like that, it sounds like it was an accident; like some vengeful Institute scientist slapped a time machine on his chest and screamed "THAT WAS FOR FATHER". But it wasn't like that.</p><p>He's in 2075 because Charmer's dead. And if Deacon can't fix it, she's going to stay that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Deacon was never prepared for the way she smiled at him.

It was like a sunny winter morning but without the biting cold; a thousand-watt spotlight gleaming on sheet ice. She turned that blinding smile on him every morning, brushing her hair out of her face before she leaned in to kiss him. Sometimes he couldn’t quite believe the incredible turn his life had taken since she wandered out of that vault. Sometimes he wondered if he was about to wake up from a coma or something. That seemed more like the sort of plot twist he deserved.

But so far so good. No coma – just this constant state of bizarre, wary delirium that left him dazed a solid ninety percent of their time together.

Charmer sighed softly. “Morning.” She stretched so widely Deacon could hear her joints crack. Hazy light filtering down from the cracks in the roof of their little hidey-hole painted her sunburned skin with splotches of pale light and forced her to shield her eyes against the brightness with one callused palm. “Jesus, Dee. I still haven’t gotten used to your new face.”

He winked. “You love it. Who wouldn’t love this baby face?”

“Good question. What time is it?” She rubbed her eyes groggily.

“No idea. You’re the one with the fancy Pip-Boy.” If Deacon rolled over so that his shoulders were halfway off the mattress he could _just_  manage to snag the device by the wristband. He tossed it Charmer’s way and she caught it with ease.

“Fuck. We were meant to be halfway back to Mercer by now.” Charmer hurled herself out of bed and snatched up her boot. Boot, singular, because the other one was nowhere in sight. “Have you seen my other shoe?”

Deacon leaned back and folded his arms behind his head. Keeping a straight face at that point was one of the hardest things he had ever done. “Pretty sure it went out the window when you _desperately_  tore your clothes off last night.”

Charmer snorted. She was already up and moving around, dragging her jeans up over her ass and struggling with her rusty zipper. “I know desperate when I see it, Dee. Saw it a few times last night, actually.” Zipper defeated, Charmer moved on to her shirt and coat.

“Guilty as charged. By the way, in case I haven’t said this lately, your ass looks great in those jeans.”

She tossed a grin over her shoulder. “Oh, I know. Hurry up and get dressed!”

Deacon just grumbled and closed his eyes, still fighting to keep from smiling. Charmer could move in utter silence when she wanted to, but she made as much noise as a lead-frame Protectron as she stomped around to his side of the bed. She seized his shoulders with warm hands and mock urgency.

“Five more minutes,” he groaned.

“Caretaker will have a breakdown if we’re late. And Shaun’s waiting for me.”

Deacon opened his eyes and hooked his thumbs through her belt loops. She leaned into his touch automatically. “Don’t you worry about Caretaker, sugar. I’ll talk him down.”

Charmer hummed thoughtfully. Deacon pulled down on the loops so that she found herself leaning over him, still braced against his shoulders, one knee sneaking up onto the edge of the mattress. Her hair swung down to tickle his chest. The denim of her jeans was rough against his thigh. “Liar. You’ll make yourself scarce soon as he starts crying.”

“Maybe. You never know. I can be the noble, altruistic type when I want to be.”

She chuckled, but the sound was rather breathless. “It’s hardly altruistic if you’re doing it to get in my pants,” she said. But she hoisted herself up to straddle him, and Deacon knew he’d won. Charmer bore down to kiss him, her lips warm and soft and gentle, her hands creeping up from his shoulders to clasp the back of his neck. Her hips rocked back and forth above him, and _Jesus,_ those jeans had to come off right _now_. Luckily for Deacon, her rusty zipper came down without any protests, and she wriggled her way out of her pants immediately.

He groaned as she sank down onto him. He could fuck her a thousand times and he’d still be putty in her hands when she held him like this: her heartbeat thudding gently against his temples in direct juxtaposition with the way his own heart suddenly stilled as she slowly - _agonizingly_ slowly - took him inside her. Charmer moaned softly when her hips came up flush against him, and Deacon swallowed the sound like honey, chasing her lips every time it seemed they might leave his.

Charmer set the pace. It was a familiar one, but different too. Different in the way the soft skin of her breasts pebbled when Deacon tugged her t-shirt up to expose her. Different in the way she threw her head back and rode him with movements that soon grew jerky and rushed. Different in the way her fingers started to dig into his spine as she approached her climax. Different, but the same.

She whimpered his name when she tumbled over the edge. Deacon held her tight against him as she shuddered her way down from her high, but she kept right on pumping, pressing her forehead against his and whispering into his ear. Deacon came so hard he thought his heart might stop all over again – but that was what he thought every time they were together. Fuck, he couldn’t think. He never could.


	2. Two

By the time they finally left their hideaway – and Charmer located her missing shoe – the sun was high in the sky and hotter than the sun really had any right to be. Charmer wrapped her scarf around her face to prevent more sunburn and Deacon managed to produce a Minuteman’s hat from the bottom of his bag, but they were both still sweating and grumpy in no time flat. Boston’s outskirts were nothing but dead trees and glaring concrete at this time of year. Deacon was beginning to wonder whether he’d hear any sizzling when he finally started to fry.

“Whoa. Hold up.” Slashes of white paint somehow managed to slice through the heat haze around them. “Railsign.”

Charmer frowned. The edges of her scarf were stained with sweat and grime. She had to shield her eyes from the sun with that flat of her hand, squinting. “Looks kind of weird.”

“Yeah.”

They moved into the shadow of the marked building, and the railsign was suddenly thrown into sharp relief. Deacon found himself frowning as well. “That’s cause it _looks_  like a railsign, but it isn’t.” It was plus sign inside a starburst; the sign for an ally. But it was a six-pointed star instead of the usual eight. That was normally part of the sign for danger. “Something about this feels really wrong – and if it feels wrong, it usually is. We should split.”

But Charmer was already moving. “There’s a pointer up ahead. We might just have a tourist with a crappy memory.”

“Or a Courser looking for some payback.”

That gave her pause, but she eventually shook her head. “We’ll be careful, and we’ve taken down Coursers before. Let’s check it out.”

“Caretaker is going to lose it if we’re late, remember?”

“And you promised to handle it, because you’re so noble and altruistic.”

Deacon shrugged. He couldn’t argue with that. Still, he was on a hair-trigger as he followed Charmer through the winding back alleys. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was definitely, definitely wrong.

“Sugar, I really think we-“

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the sound of screeching metal joints and gunfire. Charmer rolled sideways, pistol instantly at the ready, and Deacon went the other way, snatching his rifle from its sling and taking cover in a crumbling doorway. Charmer was already firing at the newcomers, but he could barely hear it over the hiss of gauss rifle fire and thundering power-armoured footsteps.

“Brotherhood stragglers!” Charmer called over the chaos. She hurled a frag grenade into the approaching ranks. “Ranks” was overstating it, Deacon quickly realised. There were only three of them. Four, if they had a scribe lurking somewhere.

“Thanks! I wouldn’t have worked that out by myself!” Deacon called back. Half a second later the first knight was down, one of Charmer’s bullets buried in his unprotected skull. Then the grenade exploded and another knight was out of action, his calf and lower thigh replaced by fountaining black blood. The last man hesitated, turning on his metal-encased heel as if intending to retreat. Deacon took him out with a lucky shot to his suit’s fusion core, and the whole sorry trio went up in a fiery mushroom cloud.

Deacon was left blinking – partly in shock, partly because the fallout was making his eyes burn. Across the alleyway, Charmer gave him a thumbs-up. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Deacon was a lucky man. She was like some messy-haired, denim-wrapped goddess of war, and there was something to be said for being in love with a woman that was more or less immortal.

“Well then,” Charmer chirped, fanning the cloying smoke away from her face. “Let’s keep on keepin’ on, shall we?”

And so they did. The railsigns led them on a roundabout, confusing path, over bridges and under fences. Its circuitous nature was reassuring; if this was a trap, the Coursers wouldn’t make it so hard for the Railroad to find them. It was comforting to think so, anyway. Charmer seemed more curious than concerned, but Deacon was glad to see she kept her gun at the ready. Finally they found themselves standing before a rusted iron door at the end of a sharply sloping street. Deacon pushed against the door. Locked.

“Oh well,” he said dejectedly. “Better head home. What a shame!”

Charmer rolled her eyes at him and knocked. Once, twice, three times.

And the door swung open. Deacon nearly jumped out of his skin, but the man at the threshold wasn’t a raider, a gunner or a knight. He was just a man: pale, skinny and unarmed, with body odor so strong it must keep even the ghouls away. Wiry black hair poked out from beneath his dirty beanie and the arms of his grungy denim overalls. Sooty eyeglasses, lenses taped together at the bridge, perched precariously on the end of his crooked nose. He had a strange look in his eyes: not the kind of mad bloodthirst that Deacon was used to seeing in wastelanders. He reminded Deacon a little of Tinker Tom, actually. Insane, certainly – but maybe not wrong about everything.

“You came!” The wastelander’s eyes lit up at the sight of them. He didn’t appear to notice the pistol Charmer had pointed at his gut. “Come in! Hurry!”

Charmer frowned – but Deacon abruptly realized that the basket case wasn’t even looking at her. A weird realization, for sure. Deacon had gotten used to being the invisible accomplice; the guy that followed the famous Wanderer around and stuck very carefully to the shadow cast by her presence.

“Look, buddy, I’m not the guy to talk to. You want my friend here.”

The man just shook his head sharply, his jowls wobbling violently. “Inside! Inside!”

Deacon looked at Charmer for help. She just shrugged, so inside they went. But Deacon kept his hands on his rifle.


	3. Three

Whatever this place was, it was _freezing_ , and Deacon envied Charmer her scarf when the metal door swung shut behind them. They were in a long, dark corridor, sealed in by grimy concrete on all but one side. Only a few of the lights in the otherwise featureless ceiling still had power, and Deacon was grateful when Charmer fired up the torch on her Pip-Boy. Their twitchy, smelly host beckoned them down the corridor urgently, one finger pressed to his lips to hush them.

Charmer ignored his shushing. “Who are you?”

“Quickly! You have to follow – before it happens, before we’re too late, before they find us!”

“Before who finds us?” Charmer pressed. “We’re not going a step further until you explain.”

“Noooo...” The wastelander whined like an injured puppy, tugging at the buckles of his overalls like they were the cords of a parachute. Abruptly, the whining stopped – and he sprinted off down the corridor, twittering like a bird, his shadow leaping off the walls alarmingly. Charmer and Deacon watched him go, dumbfounded.

“What the _fuck_?” Deacon breathed.

Charmer shrugged. “So do we go after him?”

“Hell if I know. You’re the fearless leader, remember? I just carry the bags.”

“Let’s do it then.”

She kept the pace careful, at least, and she extinguished her torch. The shadows that enveloped them were comforting, even though Deacon knew that was irrational. The guy knew exactly where they were, because there was only one way to follow him: down one long, straight, claustrophobic corridor. They’d better hope he didn’t have any heavy weapons.

At the end of the corridor was a metal catwalk suspended above total darkness. Some very rickety-looking stairs descended from the middle of the catwalk, vanishing into the darkness below. Charmer paused before stepping out onto the bridge, glancing backwards at him over her shoulder.

“This is like something out of a horror story,” she whispered. She tried a smile, but only managed to quirk one corner of her mouth sharply upwards. Charmer was _scared_. That didn’t happen often.

“Sure is,” Deacon murmured back. “Or a comic book. Hey, let me go first. Twenty caps says floodlights will come on the second we go out there. I’ve _always_ wanted to do this.”

Charmer’s eyes narrowed. She knew what he was about. She let him go first, but she stayed so close behind him Deacon could feel her breath on the back of his neck. It was almost disappointing when no flood lights came on.

Deacon hesitated at the top of the stairs. “Long way down,” he muttered.

“Might not be.”

“I guess.” His hands didn’t quite shake, but his grip on the handrail was plenty tight. He nearly jumped out of his skin when, several steps down, Charmer turned her Pip-Boy torch back on. “What are you doing? We’re sitting ducks!”

“If anyone’s gonna shoot us, they know where we are already. We’re making more noise than an angry sentry bot.” Then it was Charmer’s turn to nearly jump out of her skin – the whole stairway shook as someone leapt onto the steps beneath them.

“ _You came_!” It was the wastelander, glasses askew, eyes wild, clambering up the stairs with a hand on each rail. He paused just beneath them, breathing hard, and seized Deacon by the hem of his shirt. “Quickly! Quickly!”

“Quickly what?” Deacon snapped, but the wastelander was already dragging him down the steps. Charmer seized his arm – but they both lost their balance, and all three of them tumbled down the stairs in a tangle of limbs and boots and bruises.

Luckily, it wasn’t a very long way down. Charmer regained her feet first. Face red, chest heaving, she held her pistol to the madman’s head. “You’re going to tell us what the fuck is going on,” she hissed. “Right now.”

The man’s mouth fell open and his eyebrows lifted in shock. “Hey! All you had to do was ask. No need to point a gun at me or nothin’.”

Deacon quickly pushed Charmer’s aim away. She really did look like she might shoot him.

“Well,” she snapped, “now I’m asking.”

“I _knew_ you guys were coming.” He didn’t even bother to sit up. Deacon had to shove the guy’s weight off his legs just to be able to stand. “I saw it.”

“You saw it, huh?” Bumps and bruises aside, Deacon was rather enjoying himself. “Saw it where? On a holotape? Newest edition of Guns and Bullets?”

“In my _mind_ , man.”

There was an audible _smack_ as Charmer slapped a hand to her forehead. Deacon tried not to grin, but he failed miserably.

“It’s true, man. I saw you. I’m a _time traveller_.”

“Jesus Christ,” Charmer muttered.

Deacon was just loving it. “You’re a time traveller? Holy shit, pal! Where’s your time machine?”

The wastelander leapt to his feet. Charmer didn’t even bother waving her gun around this time. She just stuck it back in her belt and glared.

“It’s over here!” He hurried off into the darkness. “Gotta keep it hidden from the Brotherhood, man. And the Institute. That’s why I used your railsigns, see? I knew you’d come and help me keep it safe.”

Now that the nutcase was off in the darkness – presumably getting up to whatever he liked – the situation had lost a lot of its humour. In fact, listening to the wastelander rant about time machines and Brotherhood plots was beginning to become a little painful. Deacon could feel himself getting dumber by the second. He pressed one hand against his head to stop the IQ points leaking out his ear. Charmer rubbed her eyes irritably. _Can we go now?_ she mouthed silently.

“ _VOILA!”_ The lights came on, the wastelander threw his arms in the air in triumph, and Deacon shook his head.

The “time machine” _looked_ like a portal, sure. It was even vaguely reminiscent of the Institute’s teleporter. A circular metal frame had been cobbled together from scraps and secured with zip ties and hemp, then wired to a tiny fusion generator. Deacon was no engineer, but he _did_ know enough to recognise that this was nothing Charmer and her team of savvy settlers couldn’t have constructed in a couple of hours.

Still, Deacon offered a little clap. “Wow, dude. That’s great.” Behind him, Charmer sighed exasperatedly, and Deacon couldn’t resist one last jab he could tease her about later. “What happens when you turn it on?”

The wastelander’s grin widened. “Magic, man.” He reached for a nearby lever and, using his entire body weight, flipped it. The generator hummed to life. Electricity crackled and arced. Charmer jumped backwards, gasping, and Deacon had to hurry away from the sparks as well. Finally, the metal circle began to crackle and shake, then _BOOM_.

They were staring at a vortex of energy, electric-blue and far, far too real.

“Holy shit,” Charmer breathed.

Deacon cleared his throat. Holy shit. “Uh. That goes somewhere?”

“Some _when_!” The time traveller crowed. “October 15, 2075.”

“No way,” Charmer snapped. She sounded suddenly and _violently_ angry. “You’re insane. Turn that thing off.”

“But I’m not insane!” Unfortunately for him, he really did fit the mad scientist stereotype. His hair was picking up static electricity from his contraption, sticking up almost vertically from beneath his ratty beanie, and his wide-eyed, fanatical expression was made almost frightening by the flashes of blue light. “You can go back in time! We all can! We can save the world!”

Charmer stared at him. Her hair was beginning to stand on end too. She was shaking. “No way,” she repeated. “That’s – it’s impossible.”

Deacon knew he should say something. He knew what she must be thinking. If this was _real_ , if it wasn’t just a madman’s crazy fantasy, she could go _back_. She could go back to her pre-war world. She could go back to her family. And she could save it. She could save all of it. Somehow.

But then there was another _BOOM_ , a _CLANG_ , a _CRASH_ , and the catwalk above them collapsed.

Deacon dived sideways; Charmer went the other way. The wastelander didn’t make it. He was crushed beneath a heap of twisted metal, one twitching hand reaching for his invention. The portal just barely escaped its creator’s fate. On the other side of the wreckage, Charmer swore.

“You okay, Dee?”

“Yeah, I think so. What was –“

“ _AD VICTORIAM!”_ The room was suddenly awash with angry red light and screeching metal as a unit of Brotherhood soldiers crashed down on them. Gatling lasers flared and gauss rifles hissed. Deacon couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything over the chaos, so he ducked his head and _ran_ , scrambling for cover amidst the heaped remnants of the catwalk. He looked around for Charmer. He couldn’t find her.

“Charmer!”

There was no response; just thundering footsteps, blinding weaponsfire and empty, heart-stopping silence.

“Charmer!”

Fuck. Deacon took his chances and leapt into the pile of twisted metal, slipping and sliding and stumbling through the wreckage. Sharp pain raced up his calf, and it was soon followed by hot blood sheeting down his leg. Deacon gritted his teeth and tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the lasers blasting past his head. Tried not to think about that terrible silence.

It seemed like an eternity before he came out the other side. And then he saw her.

“Charmer!”

_Oh god oh god oh god oh god_. She was slumped boneless on her back, head lolling sideways, pistol resting in limp fingers. Her hair had fanned across her face, covering her eyes. He nearly took a laser bolt for it, but he ran to her, collapsed at her side, brushed her hair out of her eyes. They were glazed and fluttering, but she was breathing.

Kind of. She was breathing in the same way that a dying bird’s heart still beats; staccato, shuddering, futile. Her fingers clutched weakly at Deacon’s shirt.

“Where does it hurt?” All Deacon wanted to do was gather her in his arms, but he needed his hands to dig a stimpak out of his pocket. His fingers shook as he flipped off the cap. Charmer still hadn’t replied. “Show me, Charmer, _please._ Where does it hurt?”

She shook her head – just slightly, like she couldn’t muster the energy for more. Her breath was still shallow and fast. Way too fast. “My...chest.”

The heavy metal footsteps were getting closer. Shit. Deacon snatched up his pocket knife and sliced open her t-shirt, desperately looking for the wound. He didn’t have to look far. There was a ragged hole where her right lung should have been. With her t-shirt gone, her chest cavity lost that last little bit of pressure.

She couldn’t breathe. Deacon jammed the stimpak in her neck. Charmer batted at him weakly, her hands flying to her throat, eyes filling with tears.

_Oh god oh god oh god_.

“You gotta breathe, baby.” Deacon’s heart was racing, but his thoughts were too. It was all too fast. He couldn’t feel his fingers. He took her chin in his hand, leaned over her, tried those rescue breaths you saw in ancient CPR posters. Her fingers curled weakly around the collar of his shirt. They were shaking. _Oh god._ “Please breathe. _Please_.”

“Come out with your hands up,” a knight somewhere behind the wreckage said. “Submit for questioning and you won’t be harmed.”

“Please,” Deacon gasped. The stimpak hadn’t helped at all. Her eyes were unfocused. “Alex, baby, I love you. Just _breathe!”_ At that moment, Deacon would have given anything. Anything at all. But love doesn’t count for much in the wasteland.

Her cold fingers went limp. Her shivering stopped. Deacon pulled back, frozen in terror, searching for some sign of life in her face. “Charmer. _Charmer!”_ _Oh god. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh –_

“Last chance, scum. Come out. Hands up.”

Charmer was dead. She was really gone. The numbness had spread throughout Deacon’s body now, from his fingers right down to those tiny nerves connecting his heart to his brain. Charmer was dead.

But behind him was an electric blue way out; a chance to discover if there really was an afterlife. If so, Charmer had to be in it, right?

Either that, or it was a fucking time machine.

Deacon turned. Leapt to his feet. Sprinted to the portal, and threw himself in. There was a flash, blinding white light, and incredible, mind-shattering pain.

Then nothing.


	4. Four

“Hello?” A dull pain. A firm but gentle hand squeezing his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Deacon was never going to be all right again.

Two fingers on the side of his neck. Painful white light leaking in beneath his eyelids. Someone was holding his hands now.

“If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

Wait. Unless this was a detailed hallucination...

Deacon opened his eyes. He was lying flat on his back in an alleyway somewhere. There was a man leaning over him, brow furrowed with concern. He was unusually pretty – big dark eyes, silky black hair, smooth skin and high cheekbones – but he didn’t _seem_ like a hallucination. He offered Deacon a brief smile.

“There we go. Can you speak?” He was wearing a black suit that matched his black hair and a freshly ironed blue tie. He smelled like aftershave, and there wasn’t a speck of dirt on him.

Holy shit. _Holy shit_.

Ordinarily, Deacon would have turned to Charmer here and, after a bit of laughing and hollering, asked what she wanted to do with their first day together in 2075. He still had that impulse to look for her; find her smile glinting on sheet ice somewhere and hook his thumbs in her belt loops. _Oh god_.

But Charmer wasn’t going to die for another 200 odd years. He had time. He had truckloads of it.

So Deacon cleared his throat. “Yeah. Ugh, my head.”

“Don’t try to move,” the man cautioned. He was big, but lean. Probably military. “What’s your name?”

Good question. He couldn’t go by Deacon. It wasn’t exactly 2070s-America standard issue. Deacon’s newest face was chestnut-haired and corn fed, but it wouldn’t do to be accused of being a Chinese spy. “I...I don’t know.”

“Wait. You don’t remember?”

“No.” Deacon put a hand to the back of his head. It _hurt_ , and his fingers came away bloody. He must have landed on his head. “Damn. I think I’ve been mugged or something.”

His nursemaid frowned. “We should get you to a hospital.”

“No!” Deacon coughed. “I don’t know if I’ve got health insurance, pal. Just let me sit for a minute. Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

The corner of the man’s mouth quirked upwards. “Optimistic. That head wound doesn’t look too bad, I guess. Can you remember what you were doing out here?”

“Er – where _is_ here?”

“Jeez. We’re in Boston, just near the courthouses.”

“Seriously?” They’d been nowhere _near_ Boston central when they started following those railsigns. Shit, his head really did hurt.

“You about to tell me you’ve forgotten where Boston is?” The guy was smiling, but he wasn’t entirely joking.

“Call me John,” Deacon told him.

“John Doe, right?”

“That makes me sound like a dead guy. Let’s just go with John D for now.”

The man held out his hand, and Deacon shook it. Weird. Who the hell shakes hands? “I’m Nate Howard. Good to meet you, John.”

The guy had a grip that could turn your arm numb. Deacon’s heart had stuttered alarmingly on hearing his first name, but now he breathed a sigh of relief. Charmer’s last name was Johnson. Deacon didn’t think he could have handled it if this guy was her husband. Jesus, he couldn’t shake that image of her lying there, struggling to breathe. _Alex, baby, I love you. Just breathe!_

“You okay, John?” Nate was frowning again. “You know, I really think we should get you to the hospital –“

“No,” Deacon insisted. He didn’t know where to begin. He didn’t even know what his goal was, really. Wait out the war somehow, find Charmer and – more importantly - save her? Stop Vault-Tec from sticking her family in the freezer? Stop the war?

“At least come back to my place, then, so we can get you cleaned up. I promise that’s not a come-on. I’m married.”

Deacon laughed. It came out as a hacking cough. “But are you a serial killer? I think that’s the real question here.”

Nate chuckled and offered his hand. “Only one way to find out.” Deacon let Nate pull him to his feet, even though it made him kind of dizzy. “My car’s just a few blocks away.” Deacon had to lean on Nate’s shoulder to hobble to the end of the alley. Who knew going more than 200 years backwards in time could mess you up like this? He was about to start quizzing Nate for more info when they emerged onto the sidewalk.

_Holy shit_. There were people everywhere. The sun was shining, the streets teeming with brightly coloured cars. The landmarks were intact. That was Faneuil Hall down at the end of the plaza, completely supermutant free, its courtyard cluttered with tourists taking happy snaps at the base of the Sam Adams statue – and _sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph_ , those were red pavers beneath his feet. He was standing on the fucking Freedom Trail.

Deacon was lucky he didn’t pass out.

“You still with me?” Nate asked. “It’s not too late to cast your vote in favour of a hospital trip, you know.”

Deacon decided it would maybe be a good idea to keep his eyes on the sidewalk. “Yep. I’m fine. Which way to your car?”

 

\---

 

Deacon had a very bad feeling about this, and it only got stronger the further north-west they went. At first he’d passed the time by staring out the window, enraptured, soaking in the pre-war world. He couldn’t get over how many people there were. It was only just past noon, according to the clock on Nate’s dashboard, but Deacon was sure he’d already seen more people crossing the road than he’d _ever_ seen in the Commonwealth he knew. Nate was turning out to be a pretty good guy, as well; funny, but not the type that went out of his way to let you know it; friendly, but not pushy. When they came to a military checkpoint – and Deacon realized there was no chance they were letting a guy without ID through – Nate waved to the supervisor, and that was all it took to get them past.

But the further they drove the fewer people there were, and the closer they came to the one place in Massachusetts Deacon had been hoping to avoid.

“Here we are!” Nate finally said. “You ever been out this way before?” The sign on the corner read _Sanctuary Hills_.

“It does look kind of familiar,” Deacon replied. There was a bad taste in his mouth. Damn it.

“My wife and I just moved here,” Nate continued. He was wearing that goofy grin people get when they talk about how domestic they are. The grin only widened as they trundled past the rows of pastel-coloured template houses, finally stopping in front of the one house Deacon knew they had to. “And here it is. Damn, I still can’t get over it.”

“Me either,” Deacon muttered. His heart was racing and his muscles felt like jelly. Could he bring himself to open the door? Go inside? He could still see her in his mind’s eye: scared, pale, suffocating. Nate was already out of the car and beckoning him to the door, and Deacon had no choice but to follow.

“Now don’t be embarrassed or anything,” Nate said as he dug his house keys out of his pocket, “Alex isn’t going to be mad that I’ve brought a strange man home, but maybe just try to look respectable or something. Try to give off _doctor_ or _lawyer_ vibes so she doesn’t make me change the locks tomorrow.”

Deacon snorted. He stuck his hands as deep in his pockets as they would go, trying to stop them from shaking as Nate opened the door. “But what if I’m a used car salesman? What do we do then?”

Nate made a face at him. The door swung open. “Then we throw you out and never speak of this again.”

A familiar voice rang out from the hall, and Deacon’s tattered heart stopped.

“Never speak of what, honey?”


	5. Five

“Car salesmen, dear.”

Deacon’s legs had locked up at the threshold. All he could do was stare at the gleaming kitchen he’d only ever seen empty; a ruin made new and whole again. He was willing to bet his shaking hands were completely obvious. Nate had to have seen them. Could he see the terror in Deacon’s eyes, too?

“I’d come kiss you,” came the reply. “But I’m up to my neck in text books here. I may never see daylight again.”

_You gotta breathe, baby. Please breathe._

Nate was looking at him expectantly, and somehow Deacon managed to stumble forward. It felt almost disrespectful to be here, like he was spying on something intensely private. Charmer’s old life had always been _hers_ , and no one else’s - but he couldn’t back out now. He tried to keep his breathing more or less steady as Nate dumped his briefcase on the kitchen counter. There was a TV playing on mute in the corner and a Grognak comic sitting on the couch. Tiny reminders of Charmer were everywhere: sugar bombs sitting in a coloured glass bowl on the coffee table; a hideous pink knit throw rug draped over one end of the couch; an open notebook beside the kettle brimming with tiny sketches of the Silver Shroud.

Nate led him down the hallway, and Deacon broke out in a cold sweat. They found her in the study; the room that Deacon had only ever seen as an empty nursery.

_Oh god._

She had her back to the doorway, and that lessened the blow. A little. Her hair was longer than Deacon was used to, tumbling down her back in messy curls. She was barefoot, and there was no denim in sight - just a pale blue sundress under an oversized cardigan. She really was up to her neck in textbooks; big, beefy, hardcover tomes that she’d piled high on the desk and floor. She was hunched over, scribbling furiously in a notebook she had perched on her knees.

Deacon thought his heart might beat its way straight out of his chest.

“Hey, honey,” Nate greeted her warmly.

“Hi!” She didn’t turn around. She was too busy scribbling. “Sorry about all the mess. I’ve got a paper due on Friday – group assignment – and my group members are just _awful_. Three out of four are trust fund kiddies and the fourth is always high. I’m going out of my mind with stress here.”

She sounded so... energetic. Purposeful. Alive. Could Deacon trust himself to speak? “Ouch. Tough break.”

She jumped, fumbled her pen. She turned to look at them and glared at Nate accusingly. “Thanks for stopping me before I could embarrass myself, honey.”

Nate just grinned. “No problem. This here is John Doe. John, meet my wife – and soon-to-be attorney-at-law - Alexandra Johnson.”

Alex glowered at her husband for a moment, but quickly plastered on a polite smile and held out a hand to Deacon over the back of her chair. “John Doe, huh?”

Deacon hoped his fingers didn’t tremble too badly as he shook her hand. Her palms were smooth. No calluses. “It’s a long story.” He snatched his hand back as quickly as he could. Jesus, his mouth was so dry, and Alex just looked so young. Young and _alive._

“Not really,” Nate interjected. “Mugging, memory loss, health insurance concerns.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Right. Anything coming back to you yet?”

Deacon’s tongue felt too big for his mouth. “Not enough.”

Alex smiled, and Deacon could have fallen at her feet and sobbed. She was a sunny winter morning; the ghost of a thousand-watt future. “Anything at all would be a start. I’m guessing step two is a shower and a change of clothes.”

Deacon had gotten so used to dirty being a synonym for nondescript. That wasn’t exactly applicable anymore. “Jesus,” he managed to croak. “My kingdom for either.”

“We’ll settle for a thank you,” she replied smoothly, setting her notebook aside. She glanced at her husband. “Think you can find something of yours that won’t fall off him?”

Nate shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll check.” He disappeared into the bedroom, and his absence was both a load off Deacon’s shoulders and a lead weight on his chest. Alex was still smiling. It was like looking at a ghost.

_I love you. Please._

“Johnson? Not Howard?”

“I kept my maiden name.”

Deacon’s palms started to sweat when Alex showed him to the bathroom. They’d once stumbled across a Brotherhood bunker while wandering the wastes, and Charmer had nearly cried with happiness when she’d realised it had running water. Deacon had spent hours with her in the shower, exploring every curve and plane of her body. She’d clung to his shoulders like she’d drown without him, refusing to let go even when the water turned cold and biting. She’d shivered against his chest and told him that she loved him.

Deacon couldn’t breathe.

“Take as long as you like.” Alex handed him a towel before she shut the door on him. Deacon had never seen anything so white or fluffy in his life. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He almost called out to her.

_I need you._

Almost. He turned the shower on instead, but didn’t climb in. He just sank down onto the gleaming white tiles and let his head fall forward against the wall. The ceramic was cool enough to bring out goosebumps on his forehead. He’d never felt this kind of weakness before, like he couldn’t lift his arms if he wanted to. Like his body was forgetting how to function.

What was he going to do?

Charmer was dead – but she was also just down the hall, helping her husband to dig through his old clothes. Deacon couldn’t lose her again. He had to save her. He _had_ to. But he was more than 200 years too early. He could... what? Leave her a cryptic message to be opened in two centuries’ time? Leave _himself_ a cryptic message? Freeze himself right along with her? They were all shitty options, and they all involved standing back while Alex lost her family. Could he live with himself if he let that happen? Deacon could be the hero that stepped in and stopped Kellogg making a ruin of her life. _Hell_ , he could be the hero that stopped the nukes – somehow.

But then she’d have Nate. Tall, muscled, pretty Nate. Nate with the big dark eyes and great sense of humour.

_Alex, baby, I love you._

When Deacon finally climbed into the shower, the water had turned cold. He stood shivering under the spray for as long as he could stand it, fists clenched tight at his sides.

He couldn’t lose her again.


	6. Six

Nate and Alex insisted he have dinner with them. Floundering in baggy old jeans and a sweatshirt that was at least two sizes too big for him, Deacon couldn’t have felt more like an intruder even if he’d battered down the door and tied them both up at the foot of the dining table. Alex served microwaveable stir fry meals carefully extracted from their packaging and offered up on what were probably the fanciest dinner plates she owned. It tore Deacon’s heart in two, because that kind of contradiction was just like Charmer.

The meal was nearly entirely silent. Maybe Deacon’s hosts sensed something of the chilly cloud of melancholy that was slowly settling over him. He was beginning to scrape together the flimsy beginnings of a plan, but he just couldn’t think with Charmer’s ghost sitting there across the table exchanging little smiles with her husband. Every now and then, her eyes flicked in Deacon’s direction. He went hot and cold all over - every time, without fail - and his heart tried to prise apart his ribs like all it wanted to do was get closer to her.

He needed to get out of there. “I remember where I live,” he blurted. He’d barely finished half his meal.

“That’s great!” Alex sputtered around a mouthful of vegetables.

Nate gave her an exasperated look. “So where _are_ you from, John?”

“Cambridge. I’m going to head home tonight.”

Alex look alarmed. “Do you remember anything else? Your name? What you do?”

Deacon shrugged. “No. But it’ll come to me.”

“You really should give it a while longer,” Nate frowned. “We’d both feel like terrible people if the first amnesia sufferer we brought home fell down a manhole or broke into the wrong house on the very same night.”

“Yeah.” Alex chimed in. “What would the neighbours think?” She winked and pouted, and Deacon’s heart lurched all over again.

He _should_ stay. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere to sleep. “No,” he managed to croak. “I need to get going tonight.”

“There are no buses at this time of night,” Nate sighed. Transport options hadn’t even occurred to Deacon. In the wasteland, walking was usually the first and only option. “I’ll drive you.”

Alex bundled up Deacon’s dirty clothes in a plastic bag, walked them to the car, and even hung around in the cold to wave goodbye, but before she let them leave she insisted they take along a plastic lunchbox stuffed full of fruit and candy bars. Maybe she had suspicions about Deacon’s living situation that she wasn’t letting on. Deacon hurried into the passenger seat before she could get any ideas about shaking his hand. He didn’t trust himself not to do something stupid if she touched him again. Alex kissed Nate goodbye, and he muttered something in her ear that made her giggle and swat at his shoulder playfully. Then they were off, and Alex was slowly swallowed up by the deepening night. If not for Nate’s amicably silent presence in the driver’s seat and the radio station that blared a playlist larger than a dozen songs, Deacon could almost have convinced himself it was all a dream. It had only been hours since it all happened – from his perspective, at least. It hadn’t sunk in. But the cold seeping through the car windows was too biting for this to be a dream. The radio was too staticky. Deacon’s borrowed clothes were too convincingly soft and clean.

It was a long ride to Cambridge. Nate tried to strike up a conversation once or twice, but he failed miserably. He let Deacon out of the car just outside the main CIT campus. Deacon had no idea where he was headed, but he tried to look like he did. He leaned in through the car window to say goodbye.

“Thanks for everything, pal.” He held out a remarkably steady hand, and Nate shook it. “You’re a good guy.” Nate had no idea what it took to admit that.

“It was no problem.” Nate frowned in mock severity. “If you need anything, give us a call. I’m sure Alex put our phone number in that lunchbox of yours.”

Damn. Of course she did. “Appreciate it, man. Drive safe.” He held up a hand in farewell as Nate drove away. Then the silence settled in, and Deacon was totally alone.

He felt it, too.

\---

Deacon spent the night curled up in a paved corner somewhere. It was no more uncomfortable than catching forty winks out in the wasteland, but it was definitely less nerve-wracking. He wasn’t disturbed by a single ghoul or radroach all night – just a few irritable students that stumbled across him in the morning. Deacon wasn’t bothered by the looks they gave him. This was possibly the best Deacon had ever smelled. Quite frankly, they should be grateful.

He didn’t really know where he was headed. Without access to any of the Railroad’s records, and no chance to pick PAM’s brain, Deacon only had his own admittedly very solid historical knowledge to rely on. He munched on one of the apples Alex had given him while he explored the CIT campus, searching for the School of Medicine. The apple was sweet. The campus was peaceful. He would have loved to run a few lies past some of these wide-eyed, latte-sipping kids – just to keep himself in practice, of course – but it would be hard to come up with a lie more outrageous than his current truth. _I’m a time traveller who won’t be born for almost another two centuries. I’m here to stop the woman I love – who, by the way, is married to another man – from dying 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse._ That took most of the joy out of the exercise.

But then he passed by a campus coffee shop and the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans almost brought tears to Deacon’s eyes. His hand went to his pocket automatically. Fresh out of caps. Not that caps would do him any good here. Damn. Time for some creative thinking. He tacked himself onto the end of the coffee line seamlessly and busied himself with examining the pastries and toasted sandwiches carefully arranged inside the cafe’s glass display cabinets. A woman came to stand behind him in line: bespectacled and olive skinned, but still pale, like she spent too much time indoors. She was bundled inside a bulky jacket and swathed in a fuzzy scarf despite the mild weather, her dark hair puffing up around her face like the hood of a fur coat. She was staring vacantly at the banana bread piled in a basket near the register, but the tightness around her eyes told Deacon her mind was almost certainly on the espresso. Deacon watched her until she glanced his way. He nodded politely, and she offered a tired smile in response.

“Too early to be out of bed,” Deacon commented.

She gave a half-hearted chuckle. “You’ll be fine once you’ve had your coffee. Works for me.”

“Can’t function ‘til I’ve had my first,” he agreed. “It’s John, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

She gave him one of those sidelong looks while she thought about whether he was hitting on her. Whatever she decided, she must have been okay with it. “Danielle. Nice to meet you.”

Then it was Deacon’s turn at the register. Perfectly timed. He greeted the cashier warmly, allowed him the time to respond, and worked a bit of an exhausted inflection into his order. He let a slowly brightening smile creep across his face as he reached into his back pocket – then let his expression collapse into horror.

“Oh _god_ , you’ve gotta be kidding me – I forgot my wallet!”

The cashier just kind of stared at him for a moment. “Uh, sorry man. Go get it and come back?”

“Shit.” Deacon dragged a hand over his face. “I must have left it at home...”

“Here – let me.” Danielle came to his rescue, just as Deacon had hoped. She wriggled past him and handed the cashier a note. “I’ll take a double-shot mocha as well.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Deacon gushed. “You’re a lifesaver.”

Danielle just smiled and shrugged. “I’ve been there, man. No problem. You here for the conference too?”

“Which one?”

“Biomech.”

“Double-shot mocha and a caramel latte,” the barista chimed in. Deacon tried not to look too much like all his Christmases had come at once, but it was a struggle. Caramel and biomechatronics. Had the universe just read his mind?

“I am, actually,” he said to Danielle. Not _entirely_ a lie. “You work in the field?”

“I’m part of Doctor Hitchins’ research team, actually.”

Deacon’s eyes went wide, and he didn’t even have to fake it. The shock was accompanied by a twinge of uncertainty. This felt far too much like fate. “Oh my god. Could you introduce me?”

Danielle laughed. She was obviously the sort that liked attention. “You bet.”


	7. Seven

The conference was apparently being held in CIT’s main engineering building, and Deacon expected some difficulties in getting through the door – but he didn’t waste time worrying, because hot, fresh, rad-free coffee was _heaven_. His bulky sweatshirt stood out like a sore thumb amidst the tailored black suits and brilliant white business shirts milling in the building lobby, but Danielle’s overcoat and scarf didn’t do her any favours either. Deacon followed her to the registration desk and watched as she gave her name and collected her badge. As luck – or Abrahamic naming traditions – would have it, there were plenty of Johns on the registrant list. He picked one at random and hoped the man wasn’t some biomech celebrity.

Deacon got lucky. “Welcome to CIT, Mr. Engells,” the conference staffer said brightly. She handed him the real John Engells’ badge, and Deacon pinned it to his chest with what he hoped was only a modicum of smugness. “The opening keynote will be held in theatre G01, and the individual presentation schedule can be found in your welcome booklet.”

Deacon accepted the proffered booklet with a grin. “Can’t wait.”

He followed Danielle as she weaved her way through the crowd – and _sweet Jesus_ , she was headed for another coffee machine. She must have seen the look in his eyes, because she poured two cups and handed him the largest.

“You are a goddamn gift to humanity,” he told her.

“I know.” She grinned. “So what’s your interest in biomech, John?”

Good question. The truth? _Well, I’ve heard good things..._ “Ahem. It’s classified.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Suppose I should get used to that answer. I understand the need for secrecy, but shit – what’s the point of a conference if less than half of us can share our work?”

Deacon sipped his coffee and tried not to melt. Damn, even the free coffee was good. “Better academically restricted than red?”

Danielle snorted. “Guess so. Hey – there’s doctor Hitchins. Let’s go introduce you. Am I allowed to ask _where_ you’re working at the moment?”

“Sorry.”

“Fine.” Walking rather more stiffly than before, Danielle tugged his sleeve sharply and led him over to a short, chubby woman wearing thick black glasses and a snappy pants suit. She didn’t look a day over twenty five. She was snacking on some sort of egg sandwich. “Doctor Hitchins, hi! How are you today?”

“Hello!” Hitchins looked at Danielle expectantly for a moment, sandwich halfway to her mouth, as if she were waiting for something.

A reminder of her name, as it turned out. “Danielle from the lab, doctor.”

“Oh, of _course_.” Hitchins snatched up Danielle’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Lovely to see you, dear, lovely to see you.” Deacon had to grin. The Hitchins he knew from spotty Railroad records was clever and reckless, but altogether rather boring.

“Doctor Hitchins,” Danielle continued, “I’d like to introduce you to John Engells. He’s one of the, uh, silent types. John, meet doctor Sadie Hitchins.”

Deacon offered his hand. “It’s a pleasure, doctor.”

Hitchins gave him a shrewd look. “Lovely to see you again, John. It’s been a long time since undergrad.”

Ah, shit. Deacon had known his luck couldn’t continue forever, but he’d hoped it would last a little longer than this. “That it has,” he said weakly.

“You look rather different.”

“Clean living, I guess.”

“Seems a bit overrated. Did you dye your hair to hide the grey?”

Deacon bit back a startled laugh. Brutal. “Can’t have it all, Sadie.”

“Mmhmm.”

Danielle was frowning. She probably felt a little deceived. She quickly turned on her heel and peeled off into the crowd, but Hitchins didn’t appear to notice.

There was a commotion happening over by the door. “No I _haven’t_ already collected my badge. You’ve obviously made a mistake.”

“Sir, if you’ll just give me a moment to check with my colleague –“

“It’s E-N-G-E-L-L-S. Just give me a sticker and I’ll write my own goddamn name down.”

Hitchins sent Deacon another of those looks. There was no surprise in her expression, only calm curiosity.

Deacon cleared his throat nervously. “Could we take this somewhere else?”

“I’m pretty comfortable here.”

“It’s kind of important.”

“What’s it regarding?”

“You, uh...You look rather good for your age, Sadie. If you know what I mean.”

Just like that, the calm fled. Her brow furrowed, the corners of her mouth turned down.

Deacon pressed his advantage. “I’m not here to rat you out or steal your breakthroughs or anything like that. I need your help.”

Hitchins tossed her sandwich aside. She pushed her glasses further up her nose, like she was steeling herself for some serious academic rigour. “All right. Follow me, _John_.”

\---

The next week was a whirlwind, and if someone asked Deacon to recount all of it he’d have some real and honest trouble. He was walking a fucking tightrope, day and night, minute to minute, and all of it was underscored by the same pulsing soundtrack of ragged breathing and gatling laser fire. He was having trouble sleeping. Not surprising, really.

His lot had improved considerably since he and Hitchins had their little chat. They had an _arrangement_ , as Charmer would have put it, and it involved a leaky roof over Deacon’s head, a cover story in a shitty job at a coffee shop and regular trips to Hitchins’ lab. It also involved his silence. But really, who was he going to tell? _Hi, I’m Deacon. I’ve travelled 200 years back in time to tell you about a shady researcher in your biomech labs._

All things considered, Deacon was doing well. His job paid peanuts, but he certainly wasn’t in this for the money. His neck hurt like hell, but he could deal with it. His co-worker was an ass, but Deacon knew a thing or two about being an ass. What really bothered him was the loneliness. Deacon had grieved before, and he knew how it was supposed to work – but this time his chest seemed _too_ sore. The world seemed too grey. Maybe it was because Alex was out there somewhere, blissfully unaware of him, of the future, of all of it. Maybe it was because this time Deacon was utterly alone, trapped in a world he had no business in.

Maybe it was because even if he did somehow manage to fix this - if he did somehow manage to save her – results would still be a very, _very_ long time coming.

The constant smell of coffee beans helped. Deacon’s boss had put him on barista duty, mostly because he was totally useless at anything involving pre-war money. Working the espresso machine had involved a pretty steep learning curve, but Deacon had quickly gotten the hang of it. Most importantly, a free coffee shot here and there was just part of the job. The customers were mostly badly dressed undergrads and a smattering of exhausted looking grad students, mixed in with some impeccably groomed research and administration workers. Deacon’s coworker Roger manned the register, and Deacon pumped out coffee shots like a pro. He had a cheat sheet pinned to the wall next to his head, of course – what the heck was a macchiato? – but he had a handle on the more common coffee orders already. Cappuccinos, lattes, mochas: Deacon churned them out like a ghoul with a mentats habit. When he was in the zone like this, the back-and-forth between Roger and the customers faded to a dull, persistent buzz.

“A double-shot cap, thanks.”

“Name?” Roger was the sort of kid that sounded perpetually bored, like working at a coffee shop was utterly beneath him.

“Sam.”

“Head over there for pick-up. It’ll be a short wait.”

Order, name, order, name, order, name. Add in that coffee bean smell, and it was a pretty comforting rhythm. The hum of the milk-frothing wand had a way of pushing aside Deacon’s more maudlin thoughts – and _Jesus_ , that was something he really needed right now. Soon, he’d be able to do this with his eyes closed. But something jostled him awake this time.

“What’s your name, honey?” For once, Roger sounded distinctly _not_ bored.

“Well it’s not honey,” the customer said bluntly. Deacon’s head snapped up. “You can write Alex on the cup.”

Shit. Deacon ducked his head again. She hadn’t seen him yet, had she?

“Sure, whatever,” Roger grumbled. “Chill.”

Deacon watched surreptitiously over the top of the espresso machine as she moved to the collection end of the counter. Jesus, she looked so _clean_ , all wrapped up in a pencil dress and heeled boots. She’d pulled her hair back into a glossy twist that must surely have some sort of French name. Who was he kidding? She was beautiful.

God, he missed her.

“Don’t waste your time, John,” Roger muttered as he handed him her cup. He’d scribbled _BITCH_ on the side.

“You want me to lose my job in my first week, man? Pretty sure she said her name was Alex.” Deacon handed the cup right back. It was an effort not to throw it in the kid’s face. Roger rolled his eyes, but he grabbed a fresh one. Deacon had to concentrate hard to get the machine working this time. He wanted this particular coffee to be perfect. He thought about sending Roger over with the finished product, so he wouldn’t have to face her – but no one deserved that. Certainly not Alex.

“Uh, Alex?” Deacon called. Her head snapped up immediately, and when she caught sight of him her smile almost knocked him flat.

“ _John_?” She hurried over to him, heels clicking on the tiled floor. “Jesus, I was worried about you!” Her coffee was waiting for her on the counter, but she didn’t pick it up.

“Did Nate tell you I jumped from the moving car or something?”

“Or something. He was worried you were going to be sleeping on the street.”

“Nah.” _On_ the street would have been stupid. Deacon had slept on the sidewalk. “What brings you to CIT?”

Alex made a face at him. “I have class here! Who cares? What brings _you_ here? Do you remember everything yet?”

How was it Charmer had never mentioned she was a CIT alumnus? Deacon shrugged. “Most of it. It’s all much less exciting than I hoped. Turns out I’m not an amnesiac billionaire. It’s too bad, really. I had _plans_ , sugar.”

Damn it. Deacon could have kicked himself. How’d he let himself get so comfortable?

“It’s not _sugar_ ,” Roger muttered from over by the register. “It’s _Alex_.”

“Your coworker’s an ass,” Alex said coolly. “When are you on break, John?”

“Three.” He could’ve lied. He could’ve said he had to rush home. He could’ve just turned her down. But who did he think he was fooling?

“Then I’ll see you here at three,” she said. Then she was grabbing her coffee and walking out the door. Deacon almost called out to her.

Almost.

“She your girlfriend?” Roger looked like he’d be whining about this for days.

“Just a friend.”

Roger turned his back on Deacon and busied himself examining the tip jar. “ _Suuuuuure_. You’re gonna get burned, man.”

He was probably right.


	8. Eight

Deacon had clocked off and taken up position outside the shop at 2:55, clutching two coffees with white-knuckled fingers. This was just about the stupidest thing he could possibly be doing. He turned to jelly around Alex; a wobbly, shaking mess curled round a fractured core. If he could greet her without babbling something stupid like _I love you_ , he’d be amazed. Maybe he should run for it; drop the coffees – or better yet, drink them both – and bolt. Or maybe he should try to be a bit more adult about it. He could hand over her drink and calmly explain that he wasn’t comfortable meeting another man’s wife for coffee. Unfortunately, Deacon already had an idea of how that would go down.

She’d scoff. _What, you think you’re that irresistible?_

_No,_ he’d say. _I think that you are._

Or maybe her pre-war sensibilities would make her bit a bit less confrontational than the Charmer he knew. _My husband and I trust each other – and_ you _can trust that you have nothing to worry about._

All in all, running seemed like the much smarter option. But Deacon couldn’t tear himself away.

Alex appeared at three o’clock sharp, looking rather less immaculate than she had earlier. Strands of dark hair had started to escape from her perfect coif, and her palms were spotted with ink stains. She surreptitiously scratched at her face as she rounded the corner, leaving a splotch of black on the tip of her nose. She broke into another grin when she reached him. The pain in Deacon’s chest was sharper than ever, but he couldn’t help but grin right back.

She snatched a coffee from his hand before he had a chance to offer it. “I’ve never needed one of these more than I do now.”

“Rough day?” Deacon asked. Alex made a beeline for the low brick wall that followed the curve in the path, and he followed. He didn’t think he could tear himself away if he tried. She perched on the edge of the wall and crossed her legs, patting the brick beside her. Deacon sat, but he was careful to keep a healthy space between them.

Alex was totally unconcerned. “Remember that group assignment I’ve been working on? We gave our presentation today.” She made a sweeping gesture that somehow said _look at what I’m wearing_. “Hence the outfit.”

“You mean you don’t look like a movie star every day?”

She gave him a sidelong look across her ink-stained nose. “I wish.”

Hoo-boy. Careful, Deacon.

Alex took a long pull of her coffee and turned to gazing out at the plaza in front of them. “So you have to fill me in. Who are you? What do you do? How’d you lose your memory?”

“Whoa, hold up. That’s a lot of questions. One at a time, please.”

She huffed good-naturedly. “Is your name still John?”

Deacon came prepared, of course. “Still John D, in fact. Turns out it’s D as in DeLorean. Convenient, huh?”

“You don’t say.” Alex was swinging her legs back and forth, tapping her heels against the brick, but not in a way that said _I’m bored_. Deacon started tapping his heels too, just faintly. It reminded him of the way he used to match the rhythm of Charmer’s footsteps back in the wasteland, just trying to freak her out. It had worked every time. She’d spin on her heel, look about for him frantically, and he’d leap out of some shadowy corner yelling _AHH! SPIDERS!_ She nearly shot him the first time he did it.

He stopped tapping. Jesus, he missed her.

“Next question,” Alex continued. “What do you do?”

“I work in a coffee shop.”

“And?”

“Why does there have to be an ‘and’?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who worked at a campus coffee shop and _didn’t_ have an ‘and’.”

Deacon shrugged and threw her another smile. “I’ve got a science degree. Just trying to stay afloat while I wait to hear back on grad school applications.”

“The eternal struggle,” she mused. “And the memory loss?”

“A little hazy, but still pretty sure it was a mugging.”

“Well I guess it’s a good sign that you weren’t imagining that, right?”

“Right.”

“But that still doesn’t really tell me who you are, John.” She had that mischievous glint in her eye that Deacon was used to seeing over the lip of a bourbon bottle. “Tell me something more. Something interesting.”

“Getting mugged isn’t interesting?”

“Sorry, it’s old news.”

Deacon knew he was in dangerous territory. He shouldn’t be trying to connect, no matter how badly he wanted to. He should be keeping a safe buffer zone around his heart, because he _needed_ one. A lingering look, a careless touch or an unkind word – or a _too_ kind word – was all it would take for him to shatter.

But he couldn’t help himself. “All right, I’ll bite. But first you have to tell me something about yourself.”

Her smile turned smug. “Law student. Caffeine addict. Aspiring amnesiac advocate.”

“Amateur alliterator?”

“That too.”

“I already knew all of that. Think harder.”

She made a face at him and drained the last of her coffee. “Okay. Would you like to know why I’m studying law?”

Deacon nodded enthusiastically and tented his fingers under his chin.

“All right,” she said. “My father is a cop. My mother was a high school teacher.”

“Genetic compulsion to serve the people, huh?”

“Don’t interrupt,” she said, frowning with mock severity. “Sure, both of them taught me that I should do something that helps people. But the most important thing they taught me is that the little guys – cops, teachers, nurses... and soldiers – they’re at the mercy of the big guys. Somebody needs to keep the big guys in check.” She paused, and dipped her coffee cup towards him like she was making a toast. “That... and I’d be a very bored housewife.” She flashed a smile, but Deacon knew that particular grin better than he knew himself. It was the familiar sheet ice sunbeam, but it was fragile; on the verge of collapsing beneath the weight of some disguised truth.

_Show me, Charmer, please. Where does it hurt?_

“Your turn,” she said.

Fuck. “I’m at CIT because I’m trying to make up for a mistake I made.” Deacon was talking before he could catch himself. “I, uh... I lost someone that I cared about. I was in the city last week because I was trying to help them. I still am.”

Typical. Ask him for a lie at any other time and Deacon could have tied a story in knots and made it dance for food. But put him in front of Charmer, ask him about something _real_ , and he was babbling like a Vaultie at their first caravan meet.

“Well,” Alex murmured, “that definitely sounds like something worthwhile.” She didn’t put her hand on his arm, but her fingers moved like she wanted to. “I hope you manage to help them.”

Deacon’s neck was hurting again. “Yeah. Me too.”


	9. Nine

If Deacon had to pick something he didn’t like about his safe, predictable, coffee-soaked job, it would be closing duty. He’d never been big on cleaning – what was the point when a ghoul was liable to careen through and smash everything up soon anyway? – and the smell of the floor cleaner made him feel woozy. Roger had been in prime form today and pled illness sometime around four in the afternoon, so Deacon was left mopping and wiping and scouring all on his lonesome. It was dark and stormy outside. The torrential rain was leaking through the ceiling in one corner of the shop, and every gust of wind sent freezing eddies sweeping under the shop door. To top it all off, Deacon had another lab visit today. His ribs were aching.

Once the cleaning was done, Deacon approached the cash register with no small amount of trepidation. Someone had to count out the totals, and it looked like that someone was going to have to be Deacon. He’d armed himself with a calculator, a notebook and a pencil, but it had been _three months_ since he started working here, and he still wasn’t happy about using pre-war money. If the notes were supposed to have different values, why did they have to look so goddamn similar? He decided to start with the smallest note – “smallest”, in inverted commas – and work his way up. One, two, three...He could have cried when someone opened the shop door, though he wasn’t sure whether it would be with frustration or joy.

“Hey, can I grab a one of those blueberry muffins before you close up?” Some brave soul shouldered their way inside, dripping rainwater all over Deacon’s freshly mopped floor.

 _We closed ten minutes ago_ , Deacon was about to snap. But then the guy took off his hat. It was Nate. “Whoa. Hi there.”

It said a lot about Nate that his first reaction wasn’t wide eyes or a half-hearted greeting. It was a big, fat, genuine smile. “Whoa! Mr. John D! How are you, man?”

“Not bad, not bad.” _My ribs hurt, I’m digging through a mountain of nearly identical pieces of green paper, and you just got my floor dirty._ “You’re a muffin man, huh?”

Nate shrugged as he approached the counter, laying his hat down beside the register. “Who _isn’t_ a muffin man? You know, at their core.”

“I hear you, pal. I bet even the commies are muffin men at heart – but don’t tell Uncle Sam I said that.” If things were different – _very_ different – Deacon would have been bugging Nate for banter like this day and night. But a little green beast somewhere in Deacon’s head got its hackles up at the mere sight of Alex’s pretty-boy soldier. “You know what? We’re technically closed, but go ahead and take one. Consider it payment for your silence.” He nudged the muffin basket in Nate’s direction, and he snatched one up with a grin.

“No charge?”

“No charge.”

“Great! Then I’ll take one for me as well. First one’s _technically_ for Alex.”

Deacon sighed dramatically. “You trying to get me fired?”

“Who’s gonna know?”

“Fine.” A brief flash of lightning lit the place up like a black and white photo as Nate selected his second muffin. Thunder crashed and rumbled, and Deacon’s fight-or-flight instinct went in to full gear. _No rads in this storm_ , he had to remind himself. _I won’t be lighting up anybody’s Christmas tree any time soon_. “You’re here pretty late,” he commented from between clenched teeth.

“Alex has got some sort of awards ceremony we have to attend.” Nate briefly pulled the neck of his coat open, and Deacon got a glimpse of black tie attire beneath.

“What, for the Dean’s list or something?”

“Got it in one.”

“Smart girl.” _Also: funny, brave, beautiful, determined..._

“Mmhmm. I’m definitely the trophy husband. Really, though, it’s a good thing it’s on tonight.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Alex didn’t tell you?”

Careful, Deacon. He resumed counting out the day’s take, hoping he looked convincingly unconcerned. Nate didn’t seem like he was about to blow up about his wife going on regular coffee dates with another man, but you never know. “I haven’t seen her in a while. Should she have?”

“Well, she mentioned that you and she see each other quite a lot.” Deacon examined Nate’s inflection as carefully as he’d examine a gift from Doctor Carrington, but he couldn’t detect even a hint of rancour, suspicion or jealousy. It was truly bizarre. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I’m going to tell you right now. I’ve been called up for another tour. I ship out tomorrow.”

Everything went sort of still, like Deacon’s body was ready and willing to react but his brain wasn’t sure whether it should be allowed. “Well...shit. Tough break, man.”

Nate shrugged. Deacon was shocked by how fucking _calm_ he was. “It’s just how these things work. Someone’s gotta do it.”

“What about Alex?”

Why was he even asking? Nate’s answer wouldn’t change a goddamn thing: not the way Deacon’s heart lurched when Alex smiled or laughed or bumped into him while they walked; not the way Charmer’s last moments got stuck on replay in his head at night; not the way Alex felt about her charming, handsome soldier.

Nate’s expression went carefully blank: a sure sign of a practised lie, or at least a practised half-truth. “Alex understands. We’ve talked about it. This is going to be my last tour. Just ten months away – then I can be a full time trophy husband.”

Deacon’s smile was so wooden he was sure he’d get splinters. “Good luck, pal. Hey, I’ve really got to finish closing up. Take care of yourself out there – and congratulate Alex for me, would you?”

Nate clapped Deacon on the shoulder and slapped his hat back on his head, completely oblivious to the water he splattered across the countertop. “Will do, John.” He hoisted his muffins aloft, one in each hand, like a gladiator hailing Caesar. “See you on the other side!”

Deacon rushed through the till totals. The flimsy green notes were all damp, anyway, so they were even more indistinguishable than usual. Fuck it. He didn’t care. He didn’t know what he was going to do.

He just knew he had to be somewhere else.

\---

Deacon would have liked to tell himself he hadn’t any idea how he wound up at the CIT law faculty’s academic awards night, but he’d have been lying. The trouble with being good at telling lies is that it makes you pretty good at _recognising_ lies, as well – so Deacon always knew when he was lying to himself. It wasn’t a fun feeling. The fact was that securing a last-minute tuxedo and making it to the law building without being seen by either Nate or Alex – or drenched by the continuing downpour – took some serious work. He couldn’t chalk it up to temporary insanity, either.

He just wanted to see her; to experience something with her that lasted longer than the time it took to finish a cup of coffee. Was that such a bad thing?

Deacon had half-expected the event to be invitation only, just because he’d gotten used to the universe fucking with him in any way it could. Miraculously, though, gaining entry was simple. He stepped through the doors, checked carefully for any sign of Nate or Alex, and took up an inconspicuous position near the back of the amphitheatre. Alex was seated near the stage, sardined in a long line of uncomfortable looking young people - probably fellow students in assigned seating.

If someone had asked Deacon later what she wore, or what she did with her hair, he couldn’t have told them. He only knew that he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Nate was seated behind Alex, leaning forward to talk to her over her shoulder. Alex turned around to giggle at something her husband said, and Deacon quickly ducked out of her line of sight. By the time he worked up the courage to look up again, she’d returned to watching the empty stage, twisting the hem of her dress anxiously. It was hard to imagine Charmer had ever been nervous about an awards night – unless there were some ferals in the foyer that Deacon hadn’t noticed. Nate was running the backs of his knuckles up and down her bare shoulder blade soothingly.

A wave of jealousy made Deacon’s vision blur. It was sudden, hot, scorching - and very, _very_ real. But he would have been an idiot if he hadn’t expected to feel it.

The ceremony kicked off with a speech from the dean of faculty. He was a tall, stately man with salt and pepper hair and a suit worth more than Deacon’s dignity. He started his monologue with something about excellence and rigorous pursuit. Whatever it was they were rigorously pursuing - knowledge, justice or just a good bottle of bourbon - Deacon would never know, because he lost concentration barely a minute in. Nate was teasing Alex with ghostly touches along her spine, her shoulder, the curve of her neck, and she shivered at his every touch. He was getting some irritable looks from the greying old lady beside him, but he didn’t seem to care. Deacon understood. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

The award recipients were called one by one, handed a shiny laminated certificate and directed to arrange themselves on stage for a group photo. Those called up first found themselves stuck at the back of the group, standing on tip-toes for a chance at being caught on camera. Those called last were the unwitting stars of the show. Alex was one of the last to be called, of course, and the photographer must have been thanking his lucky stars. She was _gorgeous_.

But she was nervous too. Deacon was used to seeing Charmer standing tall and proud – a tempting target for snipers, as he’d constantly reminded her – but Alex hovered awkwardly on that stage like she’d really prefer a hole in the head over another fucking photograph. Lurking on the fringes of this memory he had no right to invade, Deacon had to wonder what had changed her so dramatically between now and 2288. It had to have been something drastic. Was it the baby? The freezer? The trek across the Commonwealth wasteland?

Or maybe none of that had changed _his_ Charmer at all. What if Deacon had stumbled into her past and done something wrong? What if he’d done something to change her? He had to scoff at his own self-importance. He and Alex had shared a few dozen cups of coffee. That was it. But the tension in his chest didn’t lessen.

What if that was all it took? One tiny ripple; one indiscernible disruption. Hell, Deacon should know: it didn’t take much to start a chain reaction.

The awards ceremony was followed by cocktails and canapés in the foyer. It was easy for Deacon to lose himself in the sea of black suits and understated evening dresses and take up position by one of the gleaming pillars. He waited around just long enough to snag a martini from a passing tray and watch Alex make her entrance, dark hair gleaming under the soft-focus ceiling lights – then he was on the move. Evasive action, Charmer would have called it. He was careful to keep his back to Nate and Alex at all times as they made slow circuits of the room, chatting amicably. They mostly talked about the howling storm outside.

Talking about the weather? Charmer would have _hated_ this.

Deacon was struck by sudden inspiration. He abandoned his martini, headed for the cloakroom – what kind of faculty building had a goddamn cloakroom? – and adopted his best waiter’s demeanour. He greeted the attendant with a nod.

“Supervisor wants you to help with serving.” Deacon crossed his fingers behind his back.

The attendant sighed irritably. Maybe he was doing his best impersonation of Roger. “Can’t you do it?”

“Wrist injury, man. ‘Suitable duties’ are the bomb.”

“Ugh. All right.” He tossed Deacon the cloakroom keys. “There are some spare umbrellas in a box back there if anyone asks.”

Alone with the keys, Deacon grinned. He promptly unlocked the cloakroom, gathered up all the umbrellas he could find, ownerless or not, and – after checking carefully for any observers – dumped them in a nearby stairwell. Nate was a good guy; a charming and handsome soldier. He wouldn’t ask Alex to ruin her evening dress sprinting through a storm, would he? Nah. He’d tell his lovely wife to wait inside while he brought the car around.

Deacon’s plan could backfire in a hundred different ways. Alex might be so desperate to escape her high heels and the mind-numbing small talk that she sprinted through the rain anyway. Nate might spot Deacon as he headed for the car and wonder what a science grad with no links to the law faculty was doing at a shindig he hadn’t even known about until he found out Alex was going. Alex might be suspicious when she saw him, too – _would_ be suspicious, if Deacon was realistic about it. She might mention to her husband how their ex-amnesiac friend was starting to seem less like a friend and more like a stalker. She might tell Deacon to stay away from her – or maybe Nate would try to make him.

There was already a risk that Deacon might never see Charmer again. He’d be crazy to risk losing Alex too.

But he had to do it.

The real cloakroom attendant soon returned, and Deacon escaped to an unobtrusive position near the stairwell. “Hey, man. Didn’t see any umbrellas.”

The guests didn’t hang around long. Maybe they were anticipating clogged roads or worsening weather. Whatever the reason, the foyer quickly started to empty. There were a lot of grumpy men making a run for it through the pouring rain, and a few laughing women splashing around barefoot as well. Lurking on the sidelines, Deacon could see Alex watching the shenanigans through the windows. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Nate leaned in close to tell her something, one hand pressed to the small of her back. Her response made him chuckle, but he shook his head gently and deposited his empty glass on a side table. He kissed her cheek swiftly before heading for the exit.

This was Deacon’s chance – but his heart was beating so fast he’d probably have a heart attack before he could cross the floor. Oh well. What was one more crazy risk? Heart pounding, skin tingling, he went to join her at the window.

“You’re having a party. What gives with my invitation?”

Alex flinched, but she was already smiling when she turned to look at him. “Seems you didn’t need one.” She didn’t ask why he was here. It was obvious, after all.

“Congratulations,” Deacon said. He nudged her gently with his elbow. “Guess you whipped those group members of yours into shape, huh?”

She laughed, all high-pitched and exhausted, and returned her eyes to the storm-lashed plaza. “Not even close. But we got through it.” She made a pointed gesture with her cocktail glass. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing this is an open bar.”

“You should be proud,” Deacon murmured. He wasn’t sure why he felt he needed to say that. Maybe he just needed her to stand tall, confident; impersonate the Charmer he loved, even just for a moment. Maybe he needed reassurance that he hadn’t fucked everything up.

“I’ve got other reasons to be proud,” she said bluntly – and just like that, she was Charmer again. Suddenly, she laughed. “Oh God, look at poor Nate.” He was shuffling across the plaza, protected by a huge umbrella he must have retrieved from the car. But he was soaked through, black hair plastered to his forehead, tuxedo shirt turned almost completely transparent.

Nate hadn’t seen Deacon yet, but it was definitely time to make an exit. “I should go,” he said. “Congratulations again.”

“Yeah.” Her good humour had vanished. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Work’s been busy.” Nate was almost at the doors, but this was worth hanging around for. “We could get lunch tomorrow.”

“No, we can’t. I’m starting a two month internship in New York tomorrow.”

“Oh – well, Jesus. Congratulations _again_.”

“But when I get back? Definitely. Save the date, John.”

Deacon made his exit via the fire doors, huddled under one of his stolen umbrellas. He wondered if Alex would mention their hurried conversation to Nate. He wondered if Nate would find it odd, or just suspicious. Deacon didn’t have anything to fear from Nate, really – there wasn’t much the guy could do to him from some distant military posting – but he’d prefer to stay on good terms. And if she _didn’t_ mention it to Nate... Well.

Deacon wouldn't be able to help but draw some conclusions.


	10. Ten

“Relax, John, and try to hold still. You’ve done this before.”

Doctor Hitchins’ assistant was, if nothing else, extraordinarily professional. The man must have been going out of his mind with frustration by this point, but his tone remained calm, cool and collected. In that moment, he was Deacon’s total antithesis.

The intercom beside Deacon’s head crackled as Hitchins’ offsider continued his advice. “Take a few deep breaths, and we’ll try again. Remember, it’s not going to hurt.”

“Easy for you to say,” Deacon muttered. He was lying on a surgery stretcher in his briefs, his skin tingling where made contact with the chilly air. The left side of his abdomen was _meant_ to be numb, just like Deacon was _meant_ to be totally unconcerned by the surgical robot looming over him with a scalpel. “Can’t I have a general anaesthetic for this?”

He could imagine the man huffing irritably before he responded via the intercom. “No, it’s got to be local. Just like I told you last time, we need to watch for _any_ symptoms that might arise upon or during implantation. If you’re unconscious, we might miss something.”

“Nothing happened last time,” Deacon muttered under his breath. “Or the time before that.”

“That’s not what you said during your last check-in.”

Deacon grunted irritably. The implant in his neck was totally painless now, but he had one attached to his liver as well, snuggled in behind his ribs – and that son of a bitch still ached at the end of a long day.

“Can I get a quieter robot, then? You know, so I can close my eyes and pretend I’m not about to be sliced up. Or – hey! Here’s a novel suggestion: why doesn’t a _doctor_ perform this procedure? I think there’s one in the observation room.”

The assistant sighed audibly this time. “I can’t perform the procedure, John. I’m not a surgeon.”

“Well you aren’t the _only_ doctor here, are you?”

“Doctors can report unauthorised experiments. Robots can’t.”

True enough. Deacon threw the robot one last anxious glance, then screwed his eyes shut. There were worse fates than being carved up into little pieces by a malfunctioning surgery bot, Deacon was sure. He was just having trouble thinking of any right now. So he did what he always did when his good sense started to overpower his resolve. He thought of her; her breath tickling his neck and her smile warming him from within like she’d slipped him some polonium with his breakfast. _I know desperate when I see it, Dee._ Her fingertips gentle at the base of his skull. Her laughter breezy and breathless when his hands found her softest places.

He _had_ to focus on those things – the little touches, the quiet moments – because he was having trouble remembering her face. The only image he could summon now was of a woman with longer hair and smoother hands.

“Go ahead and get started, doc.”

His left side _was_ numb, as it turned out, and thank god for that. Hitchins’ assistant kept Deacon talking as the robot went about its bloody business. Deacon wasn’t naive enough to think the conversation was for his own comfort. It was just another way for the doctor to keep track of his alertness and lucidity throughout the procedure, but it was a welcome distraction nonetheless. They talked about mundane things, mostly, like the weather (cold, like every February day seemed to be in pre-war Boston), the doctor’s plans for the weekend (sea fishing) and Deacon’s plans for the same (lying in bed with his bandages and his pain killers).

The doctor’s professional facade must have been drooping a little, because Deacon could swear he heard sympathy drifting over the intercom. “I’ve got a great film collection I can lend you, if you like. I picked up that new Raz Bastion movie last week. The Amazons of Xarn. You know it?”

Deacon pulled a face. “Uh, thanks pal. I don’t have a projector, though. “

“Bummer. I’ve got a couple of comics stashed here at the office too. Want to borrow some of those? There’s a few Grognaks in there. Some Manta Man as well.”

Deacon’s only exposure to – _ugh_ – Grognak and Manta Man was involuntary, and it was all through Charmer. He’d always done his best to distract her when she'd curled up with a comic. _Why read that when we can do a reading of War and Peace instead?_ _That’d be more exciting._ She’d endured all his teasing, prodding and whining with good humour and a smile – and she’d _never_ let him get his way. Nothing came between Charmer and a comic book.

Deacon cleared his throat. “Yeah, actually. I’d really appreciate that.”

“No problem.” He sounded pleased with himself, like they could pack up all the lab equipment and go home.

“Say, doc, what’s your name?” Deacon wasn’t normally so slow to get the introductions done, but he was pretty distracted during these appointments. It was unusual for him to speak to this particular doctor at all. Danielle was his usual contact pre- and post-op, and she conducted all of his weekly check-ins as well. Luckily for Deacon, she wasn’t holding any grudges about his misdirection at the conference. She still didn’t know the true extent of Deacon’s lies, though. Who the heck would believe it?

“Mitch Bell. Good to properly meet you, John. Aaaaand... we’re all done.”

“Huh?” Deacon had been trying to avoid catching a glimpse of the robot’s work, but now he craned his neck to take a good look. His surgeon was in the process of gathering its bloodied tools, but Deacon’s side had been stitched up and cleaned. It was only a small wound. Still, Deacon looked away quickly. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all.

“Where’s Danielle?” Deacon finally asked.

“On her way,” Mitch responded over the intercom. “Her kid was sick, or something. Now you sit tight - she should be here before the decontamination protocol’s finished up. I’ll make sure I get those comics to you before you leave.”

“Thanks again.”

With Mitch gone, the silence became oppressive. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t the silence that was oppressive. It was the soft snick and clank of the robot’s joints as it emptied the surgical implements into the disposal chute. It was the distant clatter as they landed somewhere far below, and the quiet hiss of the decontamination gases being pumped in through the vents. It was the steady drumming of Deacon’s heart against his ribs. Somewhere in there, Deacon had a new part; a compact little polymer shell wrapped around a tiny computerised core. According to Hitchins’ brief, this one was meant to do something to help sustain kidney function. Deacon wasn’t really concerned with the details.

He’d do whatever he had to do. He’d be whatever kind of guinea pig Hitchins wanted, if it would help him get back to 2288 intact. He’d thought about cryo – either putting himself in it, or getting Charmer out of it. But neither of those plans could end well. On the one hand, he’d seen how reliable cryo pods were, and he didn’t fancy playing those odds. On the other hand, removing Charmer from cryo early had the potential to fuck up so many different things that Deacon’s brain got tied in knots trying to follow all the threads.

He’d also thought about trying to stop what was coming. You know, _that thing._ Doomsday. But what could one guy do? Save a few people, maybe. Save Alex, Nate and Shaun. But he’d only be saving them so he could feel better; so they could scrape out an existence in the immediate aftermath of the war – and the unfortunate truth was that their new lives probably wouldn’t last more than a few days. A few weeks, at most.

The alternative Deacon had considered longest was trying to ghoul-ify himself, rather than volunteering to be Hitchins’ lab rat. Hancock had done it, after all, so he knew it was possible. But Deacon was more likely to wind up dead than immortal if he followed the mayor of Goodneighbour’s example. If you could reliably cheat death by huffing or popping or sticking yourself with every chem you came across, they’d have to start calling deathbeds ghoul-beds instead.

He’d have to remember that joke for when he got back home. Charmer would roll her eyes so hard she’d probably knock herself out.

_I know desperate when I see it, Dee_.

Deacon _was_ desperate, and not in a way he could cure. He wouldn’t know if Hitchins’ implants were successful until one of two things happened. He’d either live to the ripe old age of 200-and-something – more than _double_ the age Kellogg eventually made it to, all while relying on technology only in its infancy – or one of his fancy new parts would kill him.

Deacon didn’t like his odds. He knew desperate when he saw it, too.

When Danielle finally showed up, Deacon could have _kissed_ her for giving him a distraction from his thoughts. She was covered neck to toe in a white lab coat that made Deacon think of lasers and ozone and synthetic gorillas, but something was different today. Maybe it was the bags under her eyes.

Oh, right. Sick kid. “Hey, Dani. How’s the offspring?”

She gave him a sideways look. “He’ll live. You got cameras in my house, John?” She checked his wound perfunctorily, nodding to herself in satisfaction, before moving to the terminal beside the surgery bot and flicking through Deacon’s monitoring results.

“Ugh, you _wound_ me.”

“Speaking of which, how’s it feel?”

“Can’t feel it yet.” Danielle scribbled something on her notepad, frowning slightly. Deacon’s heart stuttered. “Is that bad?”

“Nothing to be concerned about. Other than lethargy, any complaints?”

“I could really go for a sandwich right now.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” She tapped the end of her pen against the desk as she spoke. “What about your other implants? Any lingering discomfort?”

“The one by my liver hurts by closing time.”

“How would you describe the pain? Sharp or dull? Throbbing? Aching?”

“All of the above?”

Danielle sighed. “What about on a scale of one to ten? With ten being excruciating.”

The feeling was starting to return to Deacon’s side. Maybe it was because they were talking about pain. “Maybe a four.”

“Hmm. Okay.” She scratched out another note. “Ready to see if you can stand?”

The doors opened again, and another doctor entered. Something about him put Deacon on edge. He looked very familiar – the _annoying_ kind of familiar that taunted and teased you until it started to seem like a mentats habit wasn’t such a crazy idea after all. It couldn’t have been that Deacon owed him money, though, because the guy nodded warmly to Danielle and turned a polite smile Deacon’s way.

“Hello, John.” He had a bulky yellow folder in his hands, and he placed it at the foot of Deacon’s stretcher. “Here are those comics I promised.”

“Oh – nice to finally meet you in person, Mitch. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, man. Just don’t lose them. Now, Dani – if you’ve got a moment before you see John out, I wanted to talk to you about this report Sadie wants me to put together.”

“I can see myself out, guys, don’t worry –“

Danielle’s hand lashed out like an angry radscorpion and pinned his shoulder to the stretcher. “I don’t think so, John,” she snapped. “Wait here for a minute. I swear to god, if you tear any of those stitches out I’m going to give you a matching set over your mouth.”

Well, _that_ seemed like an exaggeration. An overreaction, too. But Deacon sat back obediently while the doctors went out into the corridor to talk, listening to the dull murmur of their voices through the closed door. He couldn’t make out the words, but the sounds were strangely comforting. He closed his eyes for a moment, hoping the quiet reminder of other peoples’ lives might keep his thoughts from spiralling. For the space of a few slow heartbeats, it worked.

Then he realised where he’d seen Mitch before. He’d been a lot skinnier, then. Smellier, too, and his glasses had been snapped across the bridge. What he’d looked like wasn’t really important, though - because he’d built a fucking time machine.

Jesus. Deacon didn't need a sandwich. He needed a goddamn drink.


	11. Eleven

No more than half a stimpak per day, Danielle had ordered. Was this what rehab was like? Deacon was two days into his expected five day recuperation period, and his side felt like it was on fire. This hadn’t happened before. He’d sent several panicky messages to Danielle – and then to Hitchins, when he didn’t get an immediate response – but every answer contained the same reassurances. The increased inflammation was _apparently_ perfectly normal, given the location of the new implant. Deacon would just have to take her word for it.

But it was damned hard.

He spent the interminable hours sprawled on his bed in his dingy apartment, munching on sugar bombs and reading the Grognak comics Mitch had loaned him. Well, _trying_ to read them. Deacon’s first problem was that nothing would ever turn these things into a quality read – not even the legendary levels of nostalgia Deacon had built up over the last three and a half months. Why Charmer loved these so much, Deacon would never know.

His second problem was that he couldn’t stop worrying about Mitch.

The guy didn’t seem crazy, not at all like the madman that had built Deacon’s time machine. But it was definitely him. Deacon was positive. He couldn’t decide whether he should be furious at the man for getting him into this mess, or grateful he’d been given a chance to save Charmer. Even if that chance was thin as an onion skin, Deacon was leaning toward the latter.

He just wished he knew how Mitch had found himself in 2288, looking no older than he did now – or how he _would find_ himself in 2288, maybe. Ugh, time travel. Either way, Deacon would dearly like to learn how Mitch’s particular trick worked. He wasn’t all that keen on the idea of undergoing another dozen or so implantations. Not if he could somehow avoid it.

Deacon had to put the comic down. “Jesus, Grognak, use your words.” Deacon sighed. “I’m living in a golden age of literature, and I’m sitting here reading _Grognak._ What the heck is wrong with me? Oh, that’s right. I’m broke and I’ve got a hole in my side. And I’m talking to myself. _Ugh_.”

With the comic down, he started to stew: first about Mitch and the implants, then Alex and Nate and that night he’d snuck into the awards ceremony to see her. Being near her filled him with this jittery, anxious anticipation. He’d started to think of it as _pre-happiness_ , because he never quite managed to cross the threshold to the real thing. After two weeks away from her, that feeling had worn off, and Deacon was just left with regular old anxiety. There was a good chance Nate had either spotted him that night, or Alex had told him about their meeting. Either way, it would be only natural for Nate to wonder if Deacon and Alex were sneaking around behind his back. They _weren’t_ , not in the way the euphemism was normally applied – but hell, Deacon really had been doing an awful lot of sneaking lately. He didn’t know where things were going; didn’t even know where he wanted them to go. When it came down to it, was he hoping Alex would cheat on her husband? Was he hoping she’d stay loyal?

No matter what she did, nothing would really change. The war would still happen. Nate would still die, and that only made all of this worse. Either way, Deacon was still stuck here. Damn it, he just wanted to go home. He just wanted Charmer.

A little before three o’clock, Deacon finally snapped. So he did the unthinkable. He called the coffee shop.

“Yo,” Roger answered. “Can I help you?”

“Damn, son. You sound so professional!”

“Shut up, John.” Roger didn’t sound annoyed. Just bored. “What’s up?”

“Are you busy?”

“As busy as I normally am.”

“So that’s a no. Listen, I’m coming down for a latte and the biggest sandwich you can slap together on short notice.”

“Didn’t you say you were sick?”

“Too sick to work. Not too sick to eat. I’ll be down in ten.”

It wasn’t all bravado. Deacon’s stitches twinged painfully when he hauled himself out of bed, but as soon as he was up and moving around the pain settled down to a dull burn. He couldn’t face the thought of trying to zip his jeans, so he went for his only pair of sweat pants instead. Even with his t-shirt separating his wound from his jacket, the material still scraped across the stitches like sandpaper every time he moved. He managed to stifle the little whimper that tried to bubble up in response. It was this or Grognak.

He didn’t quite hobble all the way to the shop, but he definitely wasn’t hurrying. The place was empty when Deacon finally arrived, with the exception of Roger. He was leaning on the counter with his chin propped on one hand, a monstrous, meaty sandwich sitting on a plate in front of him. He’d speared it through with a tiny US flag stuck to a toothpick.

Deacon made a weak sound of longing. “Oh my god. What have you done?”

“Cured cancer!” Roger was grinning like he’d really done just that. “You should see your face right now.”

Deacon went to seize the plate, but Roger blocked him with his forearm. “Hey, what gives?”

“You still have to pay, man.”

Deacon sighed, collapsing into a booth by the window. “Then get me my coffee first.”

The first trickles of the afternoon rush arrived shortly after, and Deacon busied himself devouring Roger’s unholy creation. It was as if the kid had taken every type of meat he could find and thrown it all together, with a hearty helping of ketchup and relish to top everything off. It was _healthy_ , Deacon told himself. Protein for healing, right? And the best part: no radroach. Deacon was just polishing off the last of it and wondering if he’d be able to haul all this extra weight back to his apartment when Alex walked through the door.

She waved at him from the doorway and hurried over to his spot at the window. She had a huge, fluffy scarf wound around her head to ward off the cold, and her bulky khaki jacket looked like it was sub-zero certified. Even from under all those layers, her smile threatened to blind him. And there it was again: that nervous pre-happiness bubbling below his sternum. Fantastic.

But it was good to see her, even if it still hurt.

“Hi!” Alex claimed the seat opposite Deacon and hurriedly started removing her scarf. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy twist at the nape of her neck. “Jesus, it’s hot under here.”

Deacon couldn’t help but chuckle. His stitches pulled tighter. His nerve endings burned hotter. “Long time no see, sugar. How was the big apple?” He didn’t bother to kick himself for using the pet name.

“It’s Alex, not sugar,” Roger muttered from behind the espresso machine. Luckily, she didn’t seem to hear him.

“Colder than this, would you believe. And busy. _Always_ busy. I loved it.” She waved politely to Roger as he emerged from his hiding place, and he gave a grudging nod. “Can I just get the usual?”

“Sure thing.”

“So,” Deacon said. “What was the internship like?”

“Oh god,” she giggled. “They stopped asking me to make coffee after the first day. Turns out I suck at it.” She flashed another grin and covered her eyes in pretended shame. “But that was fine. I even got to do a bit of _real_ work.”

“Anything you’re allowed to tell me about?”

“I’m not a spy, John. Just a lawyer.”

“Lawyer-in-training,” he corrected with a wink.

“Killjoy,” she snapped, but her eyes were warm. Roger arrived with her coffee, then, and she accepted it with a little murmur of relief. Deacon was getting a lot better at recognising different denominations of pre-war money, and he noticed the little slip of green she handed him was much more than the coffee was worth. “Thanks, man. Keep the change.”

“Charmer,” Deacon muttered. He couldn’t stop himself. It was _stupid_ , it was painful, but there was something beautiful and tragic in the way her brows quirked in response, like some tiny part of her – some inscrutable facet of quantum probability; Schrodinger’s cat recognising that _hey, maybe I used to be outside_ – remembered the callsign.

“I try.” She broke eye contact to add some sugar to her drink, and some of that tightness in Deacon’s throat was eased. “Anyway, to answer your question: I was basically just doing paperwork, you know. The easy stuff. But I was doing some ‘due diligence’, as we lawyers-in-training like to put it, and found something that could help a little old lady keep her house.” She raised her fists and pumped them up and down like pompoms. “Go Alex!”

“You just know that little old lady was probably dealing med-X on the side.”

Alex snorted and took a fortifying sip of coffee. “You’re a ray of sunshine, Dee.”

“What did you call me?” He sounded strangled, of course. Fuck.

She raised an eyebrow coyly, a smug smile tugging at her lips. “Dee. As in John D. Don’t think I didn’t notice that sneaky ‘sugar’, earlier. You’ve got a nickname for me, which means I get to have one for you.”

As if Deacon wasn’t enough of a mess already. The last thing he needed was to fall into an old rhythm and forget who he was talking to. She was Alex, not Charmer; the law student, not the Railroad agent, and Deacon didn’t have the luxury of getting the two confused. Med-X was available pre-war, but jet wasn’t, and he’d almost overlooked that distinction when he made his comment about the chem dealing old lady. It took a superhuman fucking effort to watch what he said every minute of every day. Throw something else at him, even just her old term of endearment, and it might just be the tipping point.

He had to tell her to back off.

He opened his mouth to do it, too. But his lips and teeth and tongue were just as messed up as the rest of him, and what came out wasn’t even close to what he intended. “Nicely played. You should be a lawyer.”

Sometimes, when he was walking to work, he could hear the Old North Church bells ringing. Her laughter sounded just like their highest note: clean and pure and achingly sweet, like it knew a kind of beauty you couldn’t comprehend. She swatted at his hand like she was punishing the awful joke, but her touch was gentle. Her hands were soft, and when her fingers brushed his it was all Deacon could do not to seize hold and never let go.

“I guess I’ll see what I can do,” she said with a smile.


	12. Twelve

Deacon decided to dub the callsign incident “Dee Day”. Charmer would have thought it was hilarious. Probably more than a little sad, too.

After Dee Day, Deacon and Alex saw each other almost every day. If Alex didn’t come to the shop for coffee, Deacon would arrange to run into her outside the law buildings. If he somehow missed her, she would linger beside the espresso machine the next day like she was shooting for an average daily Deacon time. Or John time. It was confusing, and it was _torture,_ because when it really came down to it Deacon knew it was all pointless. She was married, and she wasn’t Charmer.

But Deacon’s heart wasn’t siding with his head on this issue. It was too stupid – or maybe just too naive – to appreciate all the differences. It went into overdrive at every tiny smile, every fleeting moment of connection with the woman so like the one he’d lost. No matter how many times Deacon told himself otherwise, he knew exactly what it meant. He always knew when he was lying to himself.

Two weeks after Alex’s return from New York, they arranged to escape from the constant assault of snow and coffee beans and have lunch somewhere off campus. Alex picked the restaurant. It was a classically American – but somehow _still_ expensive – burger joint over in the theatre district. Deacon was pretty certain he could afford either a meal with Alex _or_ his weekly groceries, so it really wasn’t a difficult decision at all. Alex must have predicted he’d get lost on the way, because she insisted they meet at the southern end of campus to drive over there together. The food was good, the atmosphere was friendly, and Deacon managed to steer the conversation clear of any dangerous waters. It was a fun, relaxing afternoon away from the cold and the wet. Charmer talked his ear off about a play they saw advertised, and Deacon was content to let the sound of her voice, her occasional quiet laugh and the faint scent of her perfume just wash over him. If he sat there long enough, the moments would stretch out into a single, unbroken line. He could forget _when_ he was, where he’d been, and who Alex wasn’t.

She’d cut her hair since he last saw her. The ends were abrupt and uneven, like she’d hacked off everything that fell past her shoulders on a sudden whim. She was more like Charmer every day.

“I fancied a change,” she explained. She said it casually, unquestionable and unconcerned, but she was wearing that tellingly fragile smile. If she’d known who she was really eating with, she’d have known that it gave her away.

Two weeks later, she dragged him along to that play she’d talked about. She rolled her eyes dramatically when Deacon referred to it like that.

 _“That play,”_ she scoffed. “My high school English teacher would have thrown you off a balcony if she heard you call Twelfth Night anything except _a masterpiece_. She might have been okay with _defining work_ , as well, but you’d be cutting it fine. Have you ever seen Shakespeare performed?”

“No.” It wasn’t a lie. He’d read as much Shakespeare as he could get his hands on, but stage directions couldn’t capture expression, cadence or tone. “You know I can’t pay for my ticket until next week, right?”

Alex only shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. I’m only cooking for one, nowadays. Saves more money than you’d expect.”

The play ended up hitting closer to home than Deacon would have liked. Really, was the universe _trying_ to drive him mad? He got his daily helping of love triangles, lookalike knockouts and irony in his day-to-day life. He didn’t need to see it on the stage as well. But he remembered to laugh in all the right places, and the spectacle somehow managed to creep up on him. The atmosphere was like nothing else Deacon had ever experienced. Soaring ceilings, ostentatious architecture and backlit velvet curtains drew him in close. Hushed anticipation, grand entrances and sudden, hearty laughter; they all combined and exploded like a frag grenade in a room full of fireworks. It blew Deacon away.

Alex remained relaxed and grinning beside him. They were sitting so close to the stage that Deacon could see the sweat shining on Viola’s – or was it Sebastian’s? – nose. Alex kept glancing over to check Deacon’s reaction after each punch-line, all twinkling eyes and freckled skin only barely illuminated by the glow of the stage lights. She bought him a glossy program during intermission, full of artfully staged black-and-white photographs overlaid by deep and meaningful quotes from the actors and producers. It was easily the most incredible gift Deacon had ever received. While he was poring over the program in something like a trance, Alex went to buy drinks from the bar in the foyer.

Deacon sniffed suspiciously when she handed him his. “Do I smell bourbon?”

“If you try to tell me bourbon and cola is a frat boy drink, I’m going to throw this in your face.” She paused. “No, I’m too thirsty for that. But I’ll be unhappy, trust me.”

“You’d make my program all sticky, too.”

“So we’re agreed. A simple thank you is a much better option.” She gave him a wink as she sipped her drink.

Deacon hadn’t been going to give her attitude about her choice of poison, but he _was_ surprised. Charmer was never a big drinker. The first time they’d gotten wasted together, she’d been out like a light before Deacon had even hit his stride. Turned out she just didn’t drink anything stronger than nuka cola unless it was a means to an end.

Deacon hastily abandoned that train of thought. When the play ended, and Viola and Sebastian’s lovers finally sorted out who was who, Alex farewelled Deacon with a hug. Her chin fit over the curve of his shoulder in just the way Charmer’s had, and Deacon didn’t give a damn about how smooth her hands were when she locked her arms around his chest. Maybe this was what she’d been psyching herself up for. The thought made Deacon’s heart knock painfully against his ribs.

He walked her to her car, but declined a ride home. His hands were unsteady, and he wished he’d ordered another shot of bourbon.

The next three weeks went by in a bit of a blur. Hitchins’ had a new implant ready to be inserted somewhere near Deacon’s lungs, and he spent most of his nights at the biomech labs being checked and tested, checked and tested, and then checked and tested again. He never saw Hitchins, of course, because she was the sort that governed from afar, probably because she wanted plausible deniability in case the university ever got wind of her unsanctioned experiments. Danielle and Mitch never told Deacon exactly what they were testing for, but Deacon was more than happy to fill the silence – mostly with questions about Mitch.

“So, Mitch, how’d you get into biomech?”

“So, Mitch, do you have any other research interests?”

“So, Mitch, have you read any H.G. Wells? I’ve heard The Time Machine is pretty good.”

Mitch answered all of Deacon’s questions readily, but his answers were altogether uninteresting. He studied biology for his undergrad, and his favourite professor suggested he apply for a biomech postgrad program. He had a keen interest in the neurological effects of sustained periods of high blood sugar, though it wasn’t relevant to his work with Hitchins. He’d never read any Wells, but he’d seen the film adaptation of The Time Machine. He wouldn’t recommend it.

Deacon wasn’t getting _real_ answers from Mitch any time soon.

The new implant was the most painful Deacon had received yet. He insisted on showing up for work every day during his recovery period, but only because he desperately needed the money. The pain must have shown in his face – or maybe it was just obvious from all the grunting and groaning he did – because even Roger noticed that something was wrong. He even offered to cover some of Deacon’s closing duties, but Deacon refused. Alex noticed as well. When she asked what was wrong, Deacon did what he did best.

“I threw my back out when I was dragging Roger out of a burning building last week, sugar. Nothing to worry about.”

It was the middle of March, 2076; nearly two months since Dee Day, and nearly half a year since Deacon had thrown himself through Mitch’s rickety old time machine. The pre-war era’s final days were drawing nearer and nearer, and on bad days Deacon could feel the seconds slipping through his fingers like sand. What did he have to show for these six months? A broken heart, a shitty apartment, and four tiny implants that seemed more likely to kill him than extend his lifespan.

It was on a particularly bad day that Alex wandered into the shop five minutes before closing. It was pouring rain again, and business had been pretty slow, so Deacon had finished all his cleaning earlier than usual. At this point, he was just waiting out the clock – but every cell in his body was screaming that he needed to _do something_. October 23, 2077 was looming on the horizon like a hungry deathclaw. Like every hungry deathclaw that had ever existed, actually. Ever _would_ exist.

“Evening, Dee.” Alex’s face was haggard, and she had ink splotches on her nose again. “Am I too late for a coffee?”

“Erm, yes and no. Yes in that the coffee machine’s been cleaned. No in that I was just about to turn it on again anyway.”

Her answering smile was a picture of exhaustion. “Liar. Don’t worry about it. I’ll stop somewhere on the way home.”

“Too late!” In a heartbeat, he’d replaced all the filters and trays and turned the machine on to warm up. “Should only be... about twenty minutes before we can actually use it. First cup goes down the drain, unless you really like the taste of abraxo.”

“Thanks, John.” She sank onto a stool in front of the counter with a groan and her backpack hit the floor with a thud. “How’s your back?”

“Fine,” he lied. “How’s finals prep going?”

“Finals aren’t until May.”

“Yeah, but you’re a lawyer-in-training. I know how you guys work.”

Alex grimaced. Jesus, she looked so _tired_. When Charmer looked like this, it was usually because she’d fought off a behemoth or taken out a building full of super mutants. What had Alex been up to?

“Well, I _wish_ I’d started preparing for finals,” she said. She rested her head in her hands and dragged the heels of her palms across her eyes. “I’ve had a few late nights recently, that’s all. I know I look like death.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I want to let you know that we could _probably_ have an open casket. A bit of concealer under the eyes can just do wonders for that ghoulish look.”

“Ass.” He could see her smiling beneath her hands, so she couldn’t have been too upset.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the espresso machine rumble and watching the minutes slowly tick by. The end of the world was still coming, but it didn’t seem so scary when Charmer was with him. When Alex was with him, that is. Quitting time came and went, but Deacon didn’t mind. A hopeful looking old man opened the door at one point, and Deacon stifled a groan.

“We’re closed,” Alex called. She didn’t turn around.

“But the coffee machine’s on.”

“No, it’s not,” Deacon said. It was a struggle to keep a straight face. “Come back tomorrow.”

“How much longer?” Alex asked when he was gone.

“We should be good to go.” Deacon scooped up a mug from below the counter and used it to catch the espresso machine’s first unusable cup of joe. He put it on the counter and waggled his eyebrows at Alex expectantly.

She took a wary sniff. “Ew. Are you trying to kill me?”

Deacon couldn’t help but laugh. She just looked so _morose_. “Don’t worry, sugar, I would have stopped you. I wanted to see just how low a caffeine addict can sink.”

“You monster.” Alex stood up, wincing slightly as her weary joints straightened, and rounded the counter to inspect the machine. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “You should teach me how to use this. I can put ‘trained barista’ on my next internship application.”

“Look at that, you’re already thinking like a lawyer! Imagine how impressed they’ll be when they find out you’re actually just a liar.”

“It doesn’t _have_ to be a lie,” she prodded. She was grinning, now, though fatigue still dragged her down like a weight around her neck. “Come on.”

“Well...okay.” He took the portafilter – or shiny thing with a handle, as he’d once called it – and unscrewed it from the group head. He tapped the used coffee grounds into the waste bin, removed the filter basket from its sconce and gave everything a quick clean before fitting the basket snugly back into place. “First, you take some ground coffee and fill this thing to the top. Then you scrape off the excess and tamp it down.”

She was watching him with a slight smile. Carefully, she reached out and took the portafilter handle from him. “Okay, so, over here...?”

“Yeah.” Deacon stood slightly behind her, directing her with vague gestures and pointed looks. She smelled like cheap body spray, today, mixed with that musty scent Deacon had started to associate with the section of the library all the law students hung out in. She was close enough that she could probably feel his breath on her neck, and maybe his body heat as well. He tried to slow his breathing; tried to stop his heart from beating too loudly. If she heard it, she’d know.

Hell, who was Deacon kidding? She already knew how he felt about her. How could she not?

She was tamping down the grounds and smiling uncertainly. “Now what?”

“You need to put more force into it than that,” he said shakily. He reached out and closed his fingers over hers, lending his strength to the cause. She inhaled sharply.

“Thanks.”

Deacon cleared his throat. “Now we screw the whole portafilter into the group head. Like this.” He prised the tamper from her grip and let it lie forgotten on the counter top. He slid his other hand over her shoulder and along her arm, using his touch to guide her movements, and helped her find the little mechanism in the group head that would hold the portafilter steady. Deacon went through these motions a hundred times a day, but not like this. Not with Charmer’s – _Alex’s_ – hair tickling his neck. Not with her breathing soft and erratic in his ear.

She chuckled nervously. “We need a cup now, yeah? Write my name on it for me.”

Deacon did, though the lettering ended up a bit wobbly. She gave a breathless little laugh when he handed it to her.

“It’s _Alex_ , not sugar.”

“Oh well. You’ll just have to deal with it. I’m only thinking about the environment, here.”

“What now?” She was trying to disguise a grin, but it kept tugging at her. She turned away to face the machine again, and Deacon took a deep breath. It felt like he was standing on the top of a mountain. Or maybe on the edge of a cliff.

“Now you press that button right there.”

She flinched; took an involuntary step backward at the sudden roar of the machine forcing hot liquid through the filter. Deacon steadied her with a gentle hand on the small of her back.

“Now the milk.” He had to duck into the kitchen to grab some from the fridge. When he came back, she’d removed her jacket. He was still fighting to keep his breathing normal as he filled the steel jug. His fingers brushed hers again when he handed it to her. She’d given up on hiding her smile, now. “The steam wand is normally hot,” Deacon murmured. He turned her around with a hand on her elbow and used it to guide her idle fingers to the wand. “But we should be okay this time.”

“That’s good,” Charmer breathed. She was _Alex_. _Alex, Alex, Alex._

“You’ve got to immerse the end of the wand in the milk. Hold it at... _this_ angle.”

“How will I know when to stop?”

Deacon almost laughed. Shit. He was _not_ the person to ask about boundaries. “I’ll let you know. Go ahead and turn that dial when you’re ready.”

Alex nodded. She didn’t flinch this time, but she did lean back into his touch. Deacon’s heartbeat seemed even louder than the machine. “You can stop now,” he murmured after about thirty seconds. She turned off the steam and gazed down into the milk jug in something like awe.

“Well, would you look at that. I’m a fucking barista.”

Deacon couldn’t help it – he almost collapsed with laughter. His head fell forward onto her shoulder, and he _shook_ with mirth. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Charmer –“

Just like that, it wasn’t funny anymore.

Alex twisted around to give him a _look_ , but she shrugged it off. “Is there some trick to pouring this into my coffee?”

“Not really. Knock yourself out.”

They sat on the floor behind the counter while she drank her latte, and Deacon helped himself to a nuka cola. It was a poor substitute for pre-war coffee, but he didn’t think he could handle if it Charmer – Alex, god _damn_ it – asked him to give her another demonstration. They drank in total silence, soaking up the sound of the driving rain against the windows. Alex had one leg curled up beneath her, and the other stretched out flat along the bottom edge of the counter. Deacon was cross-legged, his elbows braced against his knees. His head wasn’t hanging, exactly, but it sure felt heavier than usual.

“Thanks for being here for me, Dee.”

Deacon’s head snapped up. She was leaning back against the counter, head lolling. “No problem. I _do_ work here.”

She sighed. Her eyes drifted shut. “You know what I mean. The last few months have been tough.”

Deacon wanted to sigh, too, but he held it back. He had no right to feel bitter. She was married to another man. She _loved_ another man, and that man was out there risking his life. “Nate will come back safe, sugar.”

“How do you know?” Her voice was raw; jagged and sharp, like glass and volcanic rock.

“I just do.” Deacon couldn’t decide if it was a lie or not. Technically, he was in the clear. But if he’d learned anything over the last six months, it was that technicalities counted for precisely nothing. “When’s he due to finish his service?”

“Hell if I know. I haven’t heard from him since he left.”

“Shit. That’s awful. I guess communication is difficult at the moment.”

“I guess.”

“His tour had a fixed length though, didn’t it?”

“Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Uh, you might have to explain that one to me.”

“This’ll be the third time Nate’s done his final tour of duty.” Alex leaned forward to rub her calves, like she was coaxing the life back into frozen limbs. “He comes home each time, kisses me at the airport like we’re in a fucking movie poster, and then he tells me he’s never going to leave my side again. Then we go and do something stupid. We take some big step. The first time he came back to me, we got married. The second time, we bought a house.” She shrugged. Her eyes were on the floor, but Deacon was sure she wasn’t really seeing anything. “Hell. If he comes back this time, I guess we’ll have a baby.”

Something in Deacon’s chest wrenched painfully. “Why does the army keep telling him it’s his last tour? Seems a bit rough.”

Alex laughed bitterly. “Oh, they don’t. Nate keeps volunteering.”

Deacon didn’t know what to say. This was something he’d never known; a truth Charmer kept entirely to herself.

“I worry about him,” she whispered.

Jesus. This was too real. Deacon’s every instinct screamed at him to _hold her_. To gather her into his arms and list for her all the reasons he was never going to leave her side; all the ways he was going to keep her safe. Because he _was_ going to keep her safe. He had. He _would_. But he couldn’t tell her, because she wasn’t Charmer - no matter how much he wanted her to be. Her hair was the right length now. She called him by the right nickname, and she smiled at him in those warm, familiar ways. He could reach out now – right this very second – and touch her. But they’d still be centuries apart.

“I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake,” Alex continued. She looked up to give him a wry and twisted smile, blinking back unshed tears. “My dad told me to wait, you know, until the fighting was over. Until we were sure we had a future together. I thought he meant he wanted me to wait until Nate was officially discharged. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Do you love him?” It felt like the right thing to do here was commiserate, or make some grand speech about love and comfort and making the best of what you had while you still had it – but that all seemed so unnecessarily complicated.

Alex actually took a moment to consider. But her answer was firm. “Yeah.”

“Then you already have your answer.”

“But I loved my highschool boyfriend, too,” she persisted. She sounded suddenly angry, like Deacon had said something she didn’t want to hear. “I didn’t sign my life away for _him_.”

“Sign your life away?”

Something about the way she raked her hand through her hair made it obvious she was afraid; frightened to open up like this and expose the cracks in her armour - even to Deacon. “I do love him. Nate wanted to get married, so we got married. He wanted a house, so we bought one. He wanted a big backyard and a shiny car and three little kids with freckles. I _knew_ all of that when I married him, but I thought I’d be okay. I was _sure_ that I could be happy, just so long as I could make Nate happy first.

“But he’s _not_ happy.” She threw her coffee cup across the room. It was empty, and it was made of styrofoam – but Deacon’s heart lurched away. His better sense could go to hell. He scooted closer and pulled her into his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed, just once – loud, and desperate and _pained_. Deacon hadn’t seen her cry since Shaun died. “I begged him not to go this time,” she murmured. “I fucking begged him. But he went anyway.”

“Hey,” Deacon crooned. He held her as tightly as he could. He kissed her hair. He tried desperately not to break down as well. “It’s going to be okay.”

Useless reassurances, he knew. Hollow ones. But maybe they’d help, just for now.

“I cut my hair off because he made me mad,” Alex whispered. “He liked it long. Jesus, Nate could die out there. And I’ll be left behind with a house I don’t want, a mortgage I can’t pay, and a useless _fucking_ law degree.”

“Useless?” Deacon’s voice was almost as ragged as hers.

“We’re in New England,” she sniffed. “It’s 2076. If I’m not a housewife, I can be a secretary, a pin-up, or _maybe_ a barista. If I’m lucky.”

“A really good barista, though.”

She snorted a laugh and shook her head. “Liar.”

“I mean it, sugar. Not the barista part.” He’d said this to Charmer, after Shaun died; after they blew up the Institute and her spiteful son sent her a red-headed reminder of everything she’d lost. “You’ll get through this. One day, you’ll look at me and you’ll say ‘hey, buddy, your life really, really sucks.’ Trust me, it’ll make you feel much better.”

“Jesus,” Alex whispered. “I’m a mess.” She shifted as if to pull free of his embrace, but she didn’t quite go through with it.

“I’ve never met someone who wasn’t.”

“My mom – she died right before I got married. She had bone cancer, and she got super philosophical towards the end.” Alex wrapped her arms around Deacon’s chest and squeezed, like she was testing to see if he’d break. “She told me: Alexandra, you’re gonna have good times and bad times in your life, and in your marriage too. Thing is, the bad times are gonna pass. You’ll have the good stuff forever, if you hang onto it.” She paused. Deacon would have thought it was impossible, but she squeezed him even tighter. “But she died, Dee, and I barely remember her. Seems to me the good is only temporary.

“And it’s just not fucking _fair_.”

“Yeah, sugar. I know.”

He couldn’t remember Charmer’s face. Just Alex’s. He couldn’t remember how she used to smell, or what she used to mutter in her sleep, or what it felt like when she kissed him. He had Alex’s arms wrapped tight around his waist, but he’d forgotten how Charmer used to hold him.

She was right. It _wasn’t_ fair.

\---

They eventually dug themselves out of their pit of despair. Deacon walked Alex to her car and stood at the window, huddled under his umbrella, promising her a free coffee in the morning. She forced a smile and made him swear to make it double strength. He didn’t bother going back to work to clean the espresso machine again. He’d just come in early in the morning. He did make a stop at a 24-hour grocery store on the way home, though, and he only had a short shopping list: bourbon. They were selling notebooks discounted by the register, so he picked up one of those as well. He was in for a long night.

His tiny apartment seemed smaller than when he’d left. The ceiling in the bathroom was leaking, but he couldn’t deal with that right now. He closed the door to muffle the drip, drip, drip and took his bourbon into the bedroom. The notebook went with him, almost as an afterthought – but it wasn’t. Not really. The bourbon was an aid. An anaesthetic, maybe. It was the paper that was important. For a few heart-stopping moments, Deacon couldn’t find a pen. Thankfully, he managed to find one underneath the couch cushions. He was pretty sure it belonged to the previous tenant. Or maybe the tenant before that.

He sat cross-legged on his creaky bed and balanced the notebook on his knees. The clean white lines were unnerving.  Step one: make them less clean.

 

_Charmer’s hair was always dirty. She insisted it was red, but it just looked brown to me._

He read it back to himself silently, then out loud. It was trite. Meaningless. But it was better to remember _something_ about her than nothing at all. And if Deacon didn’t do something – even something pathetic and corny, like writing down everything he could remember about the woman he loved – it would all be washed away. Because Alex was so very like Charmer. She was overwhelming. She was overpowering.

She was everything.

 

_Charmer used to sit on one of the coffins at the back of HQ and draw comics. She called them ‘The Incredible Adventures of Doctor J. Carrington’. She didn’t know Carrington’s first name, so she just made it up._

_Her backpack was always full of little treasures she collected to take home for Shaun, even before she knew if he was alive or dead. She once left a mini nuke where we found it because she couldn’t bear to throw out the Giddyup Buttercup we scored at the Atomatoys factory._

_I used to wake up in the middle of the night to find she’d stolen all the covers, and sometimes my shirt as well. Once she even kicked me out of a sleeping bag while she was still asleep._

_She tied me to a bedpost with her scarf, once. We couldn’t get it undone again, but she wouldn’t let me cut myself free. She stole my pocket knife and everything._

Deacon wasn’t sure how long he sat there, just scribbling every little thing that he could think of – but at some point he looked up, and the clock on his bedside table said it was seven in the morning. He called in sick to work, and barely heard it when Roger chewed him out for not cleaning the coffee machine.

Deacon was already drifting off to sleep when he realised he’d forgotten to drink the bourbon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for bearing with me, guys. We're getting to the pay off soon, I swear to god. :)


	13. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, brace yourselves for that EXPLICIT rating to actually apply. If you're not okay with smut, you're safe until the first text break.

Deacon called in sick to work the next day, too. And the day after that. And the day after _that_ , as well. He wasn’t worried about losing his job, because his boss owed Hitchins about half a million favours. He was just worried about losing his mind - the parts that made it worth keeping, anyway.

 

_There was this one time Charmer convinced Tinker Tom to let her borrow his hat. She actually ended up looking pretty hot - not that it surprised anyone. She spent the rest of the day showing it off around HQ, asking all the other agents weird questions about synth roaches and alien abductions. I felt sorry for Tom at first, but the guy just laughed his ass off. He looked at me and said, “Dude, you gotta hang onto that one.”_

If Deacon went back to work, he was going to see Alex. It wasn’t a question of _if_ or _whether_ or _maybe_. She’d be there, and Deacon didn’t know if he was ready. He wasn’t sure he ever would be.

 

_The first time Charmer caught me in a lie was when I gave her my fake recall code – but it took her a solid week of carrying it around in her boot before she got suspicious. She took my little spiel about black and white and truth and lies to heart, though, and she never fell for a stunt like that again._

 

_The first time I told her I loved her, she didn’t believe me. Serves me right, I guess._

 

After day four of Deacon’s ‘sick leave’, Roger called him at home – at a totally unreasonable hour. Only nutcases or people with _real_ jobs to go to got up this early. Deacon almost threw the phone out the window when he realised who was on the other end of the line, but it turned out his window was jammed shut. Delightful.

“Jesus, man, why are you doing this to me?” Roger, usually cooler than a frozen cucumber and with half the social skills, sounded legitimately distressed. “Your girlfriend’s been in every day, asking where you are. Does she think I stuffed your body in a freezer or something?”

Deacon dragged his hand across his eyes. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“So, what, she’s your stalker? Should I start calling you every night to make sure you get home safe?”

“ _No._ ”

“Then call her, dude, before she totally loses her shit. I fully expect her to come in with a gun today.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s _totally_ not an insulting exaggeration.”

“Look,” Roger snapped, “either you man up and tell her that you don’t want to see her, or _I’m_ going to give her your home address. Do you own a freezer?”

“You don’t know where I live, Roger.”

“I will soon. The boss’ terminal password is his birthday. No such thing as privacy these days.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I mean it, man, you need to –“

 

 _Charmer was away on Minutemen business when Ticon went dark. I’d been feeling eyes on the back of my neck for ages, so I figured I’d better lie low for a while. Everybody in the Railroad knows that when I go to ground, I go_ under _it, radio silence and all. I showed up again after a few days, but Charmer nearly put me right back in a hole – ‘cause she hugged me so tight she nearly broke my neck. “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said. She made me promise not to disappear again. Not unless I took her with me._

Fuck. When it came down to it, what was Deacon’s sanity _really_ worth? Even if a miracle happened and his implants did actually get the job done, the chances he’d make it another two hundred and eleven years with all of his marbles present and accounted for were slim to none. Hell, he was more likely to get a Christmas card from the Brotherhood of Steel.

So why delay things? His chest already ached every time he thought of her. He was already a wreck. He’d more or less already drowned - so what did it matter if what was left of him got smashed upon the rocks?

It might even be a relief.

He didn’t call her. He couldn’t do this over the phone. He dragged himself out of bed to shower and dress, instead, and left the notebook lying open amongst his tangled sheets. Half the pages were still blank. Lifeless. Deacon felt much the same as he trudged through the foggy streets. At this ungodly hour, the coffee shop was the centre of everyone’s universe - so it made sense that he found Alex there waiting for him.

She was just outside the door, leaning against the brickwork with arms crossed and brows knotted. There was a coffee cup in her hand, but it didn’t seem like it held much interest for her at the moment. The March morning was chilly, and Alex was always someone that felt the cold, but her jacket was missing. Her scarf was, too, and she was wearing a long, pleated skirt that must have had her feeling every breeze. She wasn’t even shivering – just glowering at the pavement beneath her feet as though it had done her some personal wrong.

Deacon’s voice did shake, though. “You’ve got to be freezing, sugar.”

Her head snapped up, and _Jesus_ , her eyes were full of a fire that could have incinerated him on the spot. A half second later, the fire died, and Alex just looked sad. “Where’ve you been?”

“I called in sick. I should have let you know. Sorry you missed out on that free coffee.”

Alex sighed. She raked a hand through her hair, and pushed herself off the wall. “I’m late for an appointment.”

“This early?”

“It’s across town.”

It wasn’t a shock that she was upset with him, but Deacon hadn’t expected her to rush off quite so quickly. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe she was angry that he’d gone radio silent on her after she’d laid her soul so bare. She’d left herself defenceless. This was Deacon’s chance, really, to let that anger simmer; to find that distance he’d needed from the start; to push her back to arm’s length and keep her there until his heart either hardened or gave out.

“Can I walk you to your car?”

She managed a weak smile. “Okay.”

They walked in silence, side by side. Deacon’s thoughts were tracing the same tired paths they’d been following for months. His heart was beating out that same stuttering, staccato rhythm. He wished he could make up his mind. What did he want her to say? What did he want her to do?

“I’m sorry,” Alex said suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. She folded her arms, hugging herself as if she was finally feeling the chill. “For catching you off guard with all that crap the other night. I had no right to put that all on you.”

Deacon wished he could tell her the truth. All of it, and all in a rush, until he ran out of lies and secrets to tell; until he could lay his heart at her feet with a clear conscience. But that could never happen, because she was _Alex_ , not Charmer, and she was married to another man.

Why was that so hard to remember? _She was married to another man._

“There’s nothing to apologise for,” he chided softly.

Alex sent him a sideways smile. “Yeah, there is. But thanks for lying about it. I don’t _really_ have an appointment to go to. But I do want to go home and sleep.” She looked away, and the smile faded. “My car’s just down this alley here. Don’t worry - I’m not going to murder you.”

Deacon could see the future stretching out in front of him, as cold and as bleak as the March morning. There wasn’t a lot to look forward to - not for two hundred and eleven years. Alex didn’t get in the car right away. Deacon held her bag for her as she opened the door, but she only lingered there with one foot inside; halfway here, halfway gone.

“You haven’t really been sick, have you?” She was chewing on her lower lip, clutching the edge of the car door with fingers that seemed more fragile than fine china. His silence was all the confirmation she needed. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Deacon’s head was swimming. His face was hot. Hell, he _was_ sick; had been since he crawled out of the ruins of the world. He was hearing _voices_ , for god’s sake, and they all sounded like her. _I know desperate when I see it, Dee. You’ve been avoiding me._

She’d made him promise not to disappear again. Not unless he took her with him.

And Deacon just couldn’t do it anymore.

He kissed her. Alex gasped; leaned back on reflex, and Deacon’s momentum brought them up against the side of the car. She was shivering, but she was _warm_ , and when she moaned - or maybe it was a whimper? - those fragile fingers slid up the back of his neck to tangle in his hair. Fuck, it was like he couldn’t breathe. It was like he didn’t _want_ to breathe; like he’d never need oxygen again, just so long as he could have _her_. She opened her mouth for him, and she was coffee and toothpaste and lip balm setting his nerve ends on fire. One of his hands gripped her waist, like she’d disappear if he couldn’t keep her steady. His other hand cradled her cheek, and his shivering fingertips caught on the tiny scar above her brow - the only one she had this side of oblivion. Deacon would never be close enough, even if he melted into her. He couldn’t seem to kiss her _hard_ enough. But he was gentle, careful, _reverent_ , because there was nothing and no one in two hundred and eleven years that would ever come close -

But then she pushed him away. The icy air between them was like a bullet in Deacon’s chest. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“Alex –“

“I – no, I just can’t.” She ducked into the car and slammed the door, the sudden sound crashing against the alley walls like thunder in a flooding ravine. The engine roared, and then she was gone; vanished like a ghost amongst the fog and the leafless trees.

And Deacon was alone.

It was a long, sluggish moment before he realised she’d left her bag behind. It lay discarded by his feet, forgotten in the heat of the moment. Deacon opened it up to double check, but his guess was proven right: Alex’s purse was in there, and her driver’s license, and all those tiny things pre-war Americans couldn’t seem to go without. He couldn’t let her drive all the way back here in the state she was in, could he?

So Deacon started walking. It was a long hike, but he’d long since given up trying to find things he wouldn’t do for Charmer.

\---

Sanctuary Hills was eerily silent on a business day, if you overlooked the omnipresent smell of apple pie and citrusy laundry detergent. Deacon couldn’t quite believe he used to make hikes like this every day. He’d left CIT before most self-respecting people were even awake, and now the sun was already well past its peak. He approached Alex’s house with more than a little trepidation. This could go very, very badly.

He could see her through the living room window, painted all in copper and gold by the afternoon sun. He’d almost expected her to be sleeping, like she’d mentioned - but she was leaning on her kitchen bench, head hanging and shoulders shaking, one hand covering her face. Everything about this picture was wrong. Charmer didn’t cry. But Alex _did_ , and she _was_ – and she was still more like Charmer in this moment than she’d ever been before. Deacon had to wonder if her misery was his fault, or if she’d always been going to wind up here, crying hopeless tears into her sleeve. Maybe she was just destined to be miserable, with or without Deacon’s interference. Her husband was out fighting a war, probably risking his life regularly. She was as exhausted as she was lonely, as fragile as she was terrified. Deacon didn’t want to hurt her. But despite all that -

Fuck, he wanted her to want him. He wanted to think that her tears were all for _him_ , and nothing to do with Nate at all. He wanted her heart to ache the same way his did. He wanted her to know what it was like when the longing built so high in your chest that breathing seemed impossible; when your skin turned hot and cold and stinging all at the same time, desperate for the touch of someone you could never have.

But Charmer; Alex – whoever she really was, when all of it was stripped away – _could_ have him. All of him, forever, or at least until this mangled heart of his gave out. All she had to do was ask.

He knocked on the front door. Once, twice, three times. It was his first question; her first opportunity to turn him away. But she answered the door, and Deacon held up her forgotten bag like a peace offering.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and her mascara was smudged. “Thank you.” She took the bag and hugged it to her chest - an unmistakably defensive gesture. “I would have just picked it up tomorrow.”

“I know. I had to see you.” Not _wanted_ to see you. _Had_ to.

That was her second chance to cut him down. But she didn’t. She gave him another chance instead. “Do you want to come in?”

“Please.” Deacon felt too calm, like he was having an out of body experience; like he was just a bystander, and this wasn’t at all the most terrifying risk he’d ever taken. But his skin felt too tight for this to be a dream. His heart was beating too hard. Her house was still an immaculate reminder of her perfect pre-war life, and if anything he knew he should feel _more_ ashamed than he had the last time he was here – because this time he wasn’t just intruding on Charmer’s old life. He was throwing it in a wood chipper.

Alex retreated to the bench. There was a bottle of bourbon sitting there, not quite full, and Deacon’s breath caught in his throat. Charmer only drank when she was gearing up for something.

She sent him one of her sidelong looks. “Want some?”

They both knew he wasn’t there for bourbon. “Sure.” Deacon stood silently while she poured his drink, hands dangling at his sides. He wasn’t sure what to do with them. She was close enough to touch, and there was no one and nothing in the world that Deacon wanted more.

She handed him his glass. “So.” Her fingers, delicate and cold, brushed against his. Deacon shivered. “Is this where you apologise? Are you going to tell me you didn’t mean to fuck up our friendship?”

“No.” That was her third chance.

“Good.”

Before Deacon knew what was happening, she was on him - lips and hands and teeth and skin, kissing him like she’d die without it. Deacon’s head spun. His glass shattered on the kitchen floor, because her fingers were curling round the back of his neck and tangling in his hair. He stood stock still, caught tight in her embrace; turned weak-kneed and dizzy by bourbon-stained lips and husky, catching breath. She didn’t need to cling to him so desperately, because Deacon wasn’t going anywhere; couldn’t have, even if the bombs dropped right this second. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush against him, and he could swear he could feel her heart pounding in the same rhythm as his own: desperate and frenetic, like they both needed to fit a lifetime’s worth of beating into the next few minutes. Her hands slipped from his cheeks to his chest. She was cold, she was exhausted, and she was shaking like a leaf - but her every movement was sure; purposeful. She wanted him.

She wanted _him._

The last time Deacon had been this intensely, blankly blissful, he’d been holed up with Charmer in that abandoned Brotherhood bunker, freezing half to death under a steady stream of cold water. She’d told him that she loved him. When Deacon was at his loneliest - when he really, _really_ needed it - he could still remember the look she’d had in her eyes that night.

_Alex, baby, I love you._

But this time the happiness was underscored by pain – and whatever came of this, Deacon knew that the pain would be the last thing to leave them.

Alex’s lips were at his ear. “Tell me that you want me,” she whispered. Her voice quivered like a mountain bowing to the wind. “I need to hear you say it.”

Jesus. If she only knew. “I want you,” Deacon groaned. He hooked his fingers inside the waistband of her skirt and tugged – just gently, testing her response to his touch. She breathed out slowly; long, ragged and breathy, leaning into him. Alex’s hands were too soft, her scars were too few, and her hair was too clean – but she shivered beneath his fingers just like she had in that Brotherhood bunker. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. She was the dark and heady contact between a summer storm and winter chill; the lonely cataclysm of a still and silent heart. He was her saviour and her tormentor, but he was really just _hers_.

“Close the curtains,” she whispered.

Deacon didn’t need to be told twice. He was there and back in seconds. He caught her hips on the way back and squeezed – and hell, his hands were the steadiest they’d been in months.

They both lost their sweaters very quickly then, and Deacon neither commented nor cared when his landed in the puddle of bourbon on the floor. He backed her up against the bench top, kissing her neck in that way he knew drove her crazy, hands drifting everywhere he could possibly reach. He struggled with the buttons on her blouse, and she chuckled breathlessly as his fingers made their slow progress downwards. He’d never seen Charmer wear a bra in the wasteland – maybe because she’d never been able to find one in decent shape – but Alex was all packaged up in intricate black lace, and she raised an eyebrow coyly when she saw the look on his face; pushed her shoulders back and pouted, all smouldering dark eyes and bottled flame.

The pout gave way to open-mouthed shock when he slipped a hand under her skirt. His eyes stayed trained on her face as his palm travelled slowly up her thigh, waiting for some sign she wanted him to stop – but shock gave way to anticipation, then undisguised _need_ when his fingers found the damp strip of cloth between her legs. Deacon nipped at her lower lip, relishing her answering whimper.

“Oh god,” she whispered. He hooked a finger inside her panties and drew them slowly down her thighs. “Oh god, John, don’t tease me.”

That gave him pause. He loved her – _loved_ her – with every cell in his body; every fragment of his being that survived the day he’d lost her. But he hadn’t been honest with her. As far as Alex knew, Deacon was John from the coffee shop; John the science grad with the ridiculous last name; John who had only known her for a few months. She hadn’t a clue how desperately he loved her. She’d no idea of the things he’d do to keep her safe; no concept of things he’d already done to find his way back to her side.

“Would you still want me if I wasn’t a sexy, coffee-making science grad?” He’d meant it to sound like a joke, but the words came out crooked and flimsy, devoid of all armour.

Alex took a deep breath. Her body was taut like a bowstring, but her eyelids fluttered. “Depends. Exactly how ugly are you in this scenario? Any extra limbs?”

Deacon gave a choking laugh. “I’ll rephrase. Would you still want me if I wasn’t a coffee-making science grad?” He grimaced. “See, it sounds kind of ridiculous if I leave out the sexy part.”

Alex sighed gently. “Yeah. Ridiculous.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t give a shit about your job, Dee. I just want you.”

That would have to be good enough. He kissed her - deep, long, passionate, cradling her face with hands that still faintly trembled at her touch - and Alex whimpered again, clutching the edge of the countertop with white-knuckled fingers. Her mouth fell open again when his fingertips grazed her entrance, and she cried out, full-throated and raw, when he pushed one inside her. He peppered her cheeks and throat with kisses as he spread her wetness, tracing small, gentle circles around her clit, but her eyes always followed his face. She’d wailed like that in the Brotherhood bunker – and on the other nights they were together, too: lying sweaty and wanting in tangled sheets, or huddled in a safe house; fucking with only half their clothes off. But everything about this was _different_ , too – different in how her pleated skirt hung soft and heavy between them. Different in the way her heart thudded so anxious and plaintive against his chest. Different in just how deeply her eyes drew him. Different, but the same.

Then one of her hands came up to cling to his bicep. “I love Nate,” she choked out – and Deacon’s heart sank like a stone.

“Do you?”

Of course she did. He already knew that, and it would have been stupid and selfish to hope otherwise. But he’d hoped anyway. He dipped a finger inside her again, teasing her clit with the pad of his thumb, and Alex’s whole body shuddered.

“Yes,” she stammered after a moment. She squirmed, wriggling her hips slightly. Her wetness was starting to drip down Deacon’s wrist. “But I – _fuck_ , I don’t know. I feel something with you that I’ve never felt before. Not with Nate. Not with anybody.” She leaned into him, forehead resting against his; sharing his breath, his space and his heart. “There’s something fucking wrong with me, but _damn it_ , Dee – I love you, too.”

Deacon knew he couldn’t have her whole heart – and maybe he’d never had all of Charmer’s, even when Nate was dead. He knew what it was like to lose someone, and he could settle for that _something_. He could be happy with something. So he didn’t try to tease out exactly what that something was; its limits, its chances or its lifespan. He pressed another finger inside her, stroking deeper, tighter, faster; murmuring _I love you_ into her neck.

The pain, the questions, and the fear still simmering deep inside him – he’d wash it all away with the rhythm of Charmer’s breathing and the chorus of her cries.


	14. Fourteen

They didn’t go any further that afternoon. Alex buttoned her shirt with shaking fingers, and Deacon cleaned up the remnants of his broken glass. She approached him while he was hanging his sodden sweater over the edge of the sink, cupped his cheek, and turned his face towards her; kissed him so tenderly he could have broken down and cried. She was still trembling, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright.

Somewhere deep inside himself, in a dark and lonely place Deacon couldn’t muster the courage to search, he knew that even though this _thing_ they’d started was just beginning; even though his heart threatened to snap in two every time he looked at her; even though the quiet noises she made while she kissed him sounded just like _hallelujah_ – it was already the beginning of the end. The tiny bubble of hope in his chest was already doomed. It was only a matter of _when_ – though all of this was about when, really. When he’d lost her. When he’d have her back. When he’d finally die for love of her.

She kissed him again, curling her fingers in the neck of shirt. “You could sit down,” she whispered. “And I could, _you know_...”

“Take a break?” he interrupted her. “When’d you last sleep, sugar?”

She gave him an uncertain look; mingled surprise and concern. Deacon doubted Charmer had ever heard a man turn that particular offer down. “Um... the night before last?”

“All-nighter last night, huh? Why?” His hands had crept around her waist again, almost of their own accord. He gave her collarbone a gentle kiss, then tucked his head over her shoulder. Her hair smelled like strawberry shampoo.

“I had a paper due.”

Deacon recognised her sudden abruptness; classic sign of a lie. “Oh yeah? What was it on?”

She gave a quiet snort of laughter. “Fine, you ass. I was up all night worrying about you.”

How did she manage to melt him like this? Every time. Without fail. “Sorry about that.” He steered her towards the couch, feather-light kisses continuing across her clavicle and along the curve of her shoulder. He bore her down onto the couch – carefully, of course, like he was handling one of those antique vases Charmer liked to decorate with. Alex was a good deal tougher than that, though; she spun at the last second, so _she’d_ be the one on top, and she laughed like pealing bells as she laid her cheek atop his chest. Deacon couldn’t help but grin as he folded his ankles over the end of the couch and tipped his head back.

This was nice. This was _good_ – so long as he didn’t let himself think too hard. A moment later, though, and Alex’s laughter had stopped. She was holding her breath. Classic sign of anxiety, that.

“Are you okay?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

It hurt to say it, but Deacon managed. Somehow. “I can leave, if you want. No hard feelings.”

“No.” Her voice was small and quiet.

“Or we could talk about it. That thing you’re thinking.”

She planted a kiss on his ribs through the fabric of his shirt. “Not yet.” She closed her eyes.

Deacon ran his fingertips up and down the back of her neck, slow and tender. He’d dared to hope, but he’d never really believed he’d get to do this again; to just lie down with Charmer, linger in the touch of her skin on his and listen to the slow rhythm of her breathing. If he closed his eyes, he could almost convince himself that all of it – the entire six months of loneliness and grief - had been some crazy hallucination, or just some new and terrible type of night terror. He could almost convince himself this was for real; that he’d never leave her side again.

There was a time – far too long ago, now – when he and Charmer were trapped in Satellite Station Olivia by a passing rad storm. It lasted for three days. They’d whiled away the hours talking, at first, digging through their bags for sugar bombs (in Charmer’s case) and nuka cola (in Deacon’s). Eventually they’d realised the storm wouldn’t be clearing any time soon, so they’d spread their sleeping bags beside each other on the floor and piled their backpacks up behind, using Charmer’s spare jacket and one of Deacon’s nondescript disguises to fashion a wobbly but passable nest. Charmer found an old desk lamp in a storage cupboard and rigged it up to a makeshift battery – and, shockingly, it worked. Their little den might have been ugly, and it was certainly haphazard, but it was safe and dry and warm. They’d curled up there together in calm, contented silence and pretended the dry yellow light from their desk lamp was afternoon sunshine.

Deacon could have been back there right now; safe and dry and warm; listening to Charmer’s breathing slow until she finally fell asleep.

Deacon must have fallen asleep too, because he was startled awake by a crash in the middle of the night – and it was _dark_. His first thought was _shit, what’s happening?_ His next was _where’s Charmer?_

“Oops.” A giggle sounded from somewhere behind him. “Sorry, Dee. I was hungry.”

He mumbled something incoherent; cleared his throat. “S’all right. What time is it?” It took him a few moments to remember where he was; when he was. Charmer was always noisy in the mornings.

“Erm...not quite three AM,” Alex called. She sounded sheepish. “I was trying to be quiet.”

“I believe you, sugar. Maybe next time just wake me up some other way, hmm?” He regretted it as soon as he said it. It was too early for double entendres; too soon to be joking about this.

But he needn’t have worried. She only chuckled. “You sure? I make some mean scrambled eggs.”

“What red-blooded American would say no to that?” He had to cover his eyes when she switched on the kitchen light. Ouch. He lay back down and narrowed his eyes to slits, gazing up at the ceiling to let his eyes adjust.

Alex was clattering around with a frypan and spatula now. “Now that you mention it,” she said. “Sounds like a great way to identify the commie sympathisers, huh? Just bring ‘round a big ol’ plate of eggs and bacon and watch for any sign of hesitation.”

Deacon coughed. “I wouldn’t say no to some bacon, either.”

Alex grimaced. “I, uh... I don’t actually have any bacon. It’s eggs or nothing, I’m afraid.”

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I can’t. Breakfast is the limit of my abilities.”

He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I still love you.”

They both fell silent. It was morning, more or less, and _everything_ seems harder in the morning. Deacon craned his neck to look at her, only to find her staring right back. She quickly looked away and cleared her throat, fumbling to turn on the stove and open the egg carton.

“Do we _have_ to talk about it?” she asked.

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Then let’s not.” She grinned at him, suddenly all smiles and artificial sunshine. “’Cause I’m hungry.”

In the end, Deacon was glad they didn’t stop to talk about it – because _it_ was overwhelming. _It_ was scary, and it was something they couldn’t fix. Instead, Deacon leaned on the countertop to watch Alex cook, and she talked endlessly of little things: her approaching finals; a new restaurant she’d been to in the theatre district; another play she’d like to take him to see. After breakfast, Alex went to take a shower – but she twined her fingers through Deacon’s before she headed down the hall, and Deacon followed like he always had. Like he always would. They lost themselves in a haze of hot water, steam and panting breaths. By the time they emerged, the memory of the last time Deacon was in this house had almost faded away. After they dressed, they ended up back on the couch, curled into each other’s embrace; just breathing, listening, touching; relishing the quiet hours.

That all ended a little after six-thirty. The doorbell rang, and Alex sat bolt upright like a radstag doe listening for a yao guai.

“Fuck,” she whispered. She leapt to her feet, bristling with nervous energy. Deacon only watched her in bemusement, so she seized his wrist and dragged him upright. “You have to hide,” she hissed. “Quickly, quickly – in the hall closet!”

“Wha –“

“Just do it!” She planted two hands on the small of his back and pushed him down the hallway, wrenching open the closet door and shoving him inside unceremoniously. She held a finger to her lips. “Don’t make a sound,” she whispered as she shut the door.

The closet was dark; full of musty winter jackets, snowshoes and household miscellany Deacon couldn’t even put a name to. Tiny slits of light from the kitchen snuck in between the slats in the closet door and through the gap beneath it. Deacon tried to stand upright, knocked his head on something heavy and metallic, then opted to huddle against the door instead, straining his ears.

He heard the front door swing open. “Mrs. Able! What an unexpected pleasure!”

“Alex, dear,” somebody said. “I’m so sorry to bother you so early.”

“It’s no trouble at all, Mary.” Deacon had to hold in a snort at the obvious lie. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s so silly, dear – we’re all out of milk, and you _know_ what men can be like when their morning coffee isn’t quite right. Could I perhaps trouble you...?”

“It’ll be no trouble _at all_ ,” Alex replied. “Please, come in. Let me fetch some for you.”

The door swung shut, and Deacon listened to Mrs. Able’s heels click, click, click their way over to the kitchen counter while Alex opened the fridge. They were both closer, now, and easier to eavesdrop on, but Deacon quickly lost interest in their small talk. There was a bulky old winter jacket hanging barely an inch from his face. The material was rough, the cuffs slightly frayed, and it smelled like dust with faint undertones of oil. It was obviously a man’s coat; _Nate’s_ coat.

What the hell was Deacon doing? He was hiding in a hall closet like somebody’s dirty secret, listening as his lover tried to hide him from the neighbours. He tried not to think about the bedroom he and Alex had deftly avoided last night, or the men’s toiletries in the bathroom that he’d managed to overlook.

“And how have you been getting on, lovely?” Mrs. Able’s voice cut through Deacon’s musings.

“Oh, I’m managing to make do.”

“There’s not much else one _can_ do, is there? Next time you hear from that handsome man of yours, do make sure to send him our best wishes. It’s men like him that are keeping the United States strong.”

“I will, but you know him – I expect his letters won’t arrive until the day he does. But thank you.”

Click, click, click. “Thank you for the milk, dear. Maybe we’ll see you out and about in Concord this weekend.”

“That would be lovely. You and Jeff take care, now.” The door swung shut, and Deacon could finally breathe again.

“Can I come out?”

“Yeah.” Alex met him in the hallway and rushed into his arms. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. “She saw your sweater by the sink. That’s why she brought up Nate.” Her voice rasped over his name. _Nate_.

Deacon held her as tightly as he could; kissed her hair, and wished that things were different. This was their reality. In this world, Alex was an adulteress rather than a widow; on top of being a liar, Deacon was the _other man_. But his heart was at odds with the world again. His brain couldn’t accept the conflcit between reality and what he _knew_ to be true. Whatever else Charmer was, she was his _everything_. And he was hers.

It would be easier to breathe if they were out of Nate’s shadow.

“Let me take you out somewhere,” he murmured into her hair. “We could drive out to the bay, grab a bit of sunshine.”

“It’s forecast for rain, today,” Alex replied. She sighed. “And there’s a good chance someone I know might see us.”

“You can’t know the whole city, sugar.”

“Doesn’t matter. One is enough.” She tilted her face upwards to kiss him softly; apologetically. “We’ll wait for all the neighbours to leave for work and school runs, and then I’ll drive us back into the university. We can get coffee at the shop again. We’ve done that a hundred times. That will be safe.”

Safe. Deacon suppressed a sigh. Nothing about this was safe. She knew it just as well as he did. It was all just a matter of _when_.

But Deacon knew he couldn’t give her up.


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No explicit tags to worry about here, guys.

“Feeling all right, John?” Danielle didn’t sound truly concerned, but she did prod him in the shoulder with the end of her pen slightly less sharply than usual. If Deacon leaned sideways with the force and snapped his torso upright like a spring, the hospital-style bed he was sitting on swayed back and forth like a rocking horse. “If you’re feeling lethargic or confused, you need to tell me.”

Deacon shook his head. “Nope. No lethargy. And who the heck isn’t confused?”

“Fair point,” Danielle commented. She was scribbling on her clipboard again.

It was just a routine check up. Deacon hadn’t gotten any new implants since before Alex had her breakdown on the coffee shop floor – and to be quite honest, the pencilled-in schedule he and Danielle had agreed on had totally slipped his mind. The last four weeks had been a whirlwind. He had to abandon the description there and just leave at that, because dwelling on it still sent him into a spiral of hot and cold; joy and pre-emptive mourning.

“All right.” That was Mitch, watching over Danielle’s shoulder. “We’re looking pretty good, aside from that pain you mentioned.”

“We’ll keep an eye on that,” Danielle said cautiously. “But I’d rather keep you off the Med-X if we can avoid it.”

Deacon’s pain had actually seemed fairly manageable lately. “Message received.”

Mitch was giving Deacon something of an odd look. “Dr. Hitchins is going to be in to talk to you in a sec-“

“Wait, what?”

Danielle flashed him a grin. “I hope you feel special. She wants to talk you through the next procedure she wants to try.”

“Wow. It feels like Christmas.”

“We’ll be here for moral support.”

“Gee, _that’s_ a relief.”

Mitch made a face at him. “You’ve kind of dialled the sarcasm up a notch today.”

“Is that a symptom?”

Danielle sighed. “I wish it was.” She cocked her head to look at him side on, like she was puzzling something through. “There’s something different about you recently. This might be too personal, so stop me if it is, but – you seem _happy_.”

Deacon shrugged nonchalantly, but her words hit him like a lightning bolt. She was right. He _was_ happy, even though he knew he shouldn’t be; even if the worst of this entire ordeal was still ahead of him. “Well, you know. Clean eating and exercise do wonders for more than your complexion.”

“Right.” She was smiling indulgently. “Are you seeing anyone, John?”

Ugh. If she only knew what a complicated question that was. “I see lots of people. I see people all the time.”

She nodded absently, like the only word she’d heard was _yes_. “And it’s a new relationship?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, you know...” She fussed with her notebook, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and glanced anxiously at Mitch like she was hoping he’d jump in. Deacon had caught her off guard somehow.

“Know what?”

She glanced down at her hands; turned away to shuffle some papers on the table behind her. “Well, I just figured that there’s only one type of person that volunteers for this kind of research. That’s all.”

There it was: the judgment. She had a point, though, when it came down to it. She didn’t mean single men. She meant _desperate_ men – and she was bang on the money. As far as she was concerned, Deacon was throwing his life away on the kind of madcap experiment only useful for killing lab rats; the kind of crazy endeavour that no one really expected to succeed in their lifetime. Hell, she was _right_.

Deacon sighed. “Way to put me in a box, Dani. I’ll have you know that I contribute to society all the time. Just last week I contributed... _so many_ contributions. I did so much contributing I lost track.”

Danielle was saved from responding - and actually wobbled slightly in relief – when Hitchins came through the door. Even though Deacon hadn’t seen the doctor face-to-face for months, she offered not a word of greeting, striding over to his hospital bed like a woman on a mission.

On second thought, Deacon realised that was exactly what she was.

“How do our results look?” She didn’t seem to be particularly interested in Danielle’s answer, because she helped herself to the clipboard and scanned through the data herself.  She mumbled under her breath as she went, rubbing her thumb against her forefinger thoughtfully. “Hmm. Good to see, good to see...”

Deacon gave her a mock salute. “Right back at you, Doctor.”

Hitchins’ head snapped up. “Definitely alive and kicking,” she said, like that wouldn’t make any lab rat nervous. “So, have Bell or Green told you anything about the next procedure?”

“No,” Danielle interjected. “You mentioned that you wanted to –“

“Yes. Thank you.” Hitchins nodded brusquely. “Okay, John. Your liver, your right lung and your left kidney are currently being supported and provided with a degree of redundancy by synthetic components tailored to each particular organ. With me so far?”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa, hang on. You’re telling me you’ve been sticking implants inside me?”

Danielle chuckled, and Mitch hid a smirk behind his hand. Hitchins just hit Deacon with a deadpan stare.

“The first implant - the one on your C4 vertebra –acts as something of a control centre that monitors and provides a feedback system for your other three augmentations. So far, it’s all looking good, and we’ve been able to verify our theorised signalling systems for evaluation of the satellite implant processes.”

Deacon could follow that. Kind of. He decided the safest response was a measured nod and a thoughtful expression. “Uh huh. Got it.”

“The trouble is,” Hitchins continued. “We’ve made substantial improvements since that first implant, and the original infrastructure present in _that_ one is preventing us from implementing any of our newer networking procedures in augmentations planned for the coming months.”

Deacon looked at Danielle. “And in English, that means...”

Danielle was clearly trying not to look too pleased at being named the better communicator. “We basically need to upgrade your hardware.”

“Oh, man. That is _brilliant_. Less than a year in, and I’m already out of date.”

“That’s the nature of progress,” Hitchins cut in. “Now here’s the rub: we can’t remove your C4 implant and replace it. Too risky to detach the augmentation you’ve already got. So what we propose to do instead is set you up with an entire system of internetworked vertebral augmentations that we’re calling facilitation hubs. We can attach any future satellites to different points on that network dependent on the specific requirements of each new implant, and the surplus processing power should mean we can account for the demands of improving capabilities in the satellites as time goes on.”

Deacon just looked at Danielle expectantly. Mitch shook his head in mock exasperation.

Danielle was grinning widely now. “We want to stick a whole bunch of implants along your spine and link them all together to support our new and improved organ augmentations.”

Even the cliff notes didn’t sound too inviting. “And why do they need to be up and down my spine? Sounds a little dangerous.”

“This whole endeavour has been dangerous,” Hitchins said sternly. “We can work with the system you’ve got now, but it will be severely limited compared to the new framework.”

“But...why my spine?” Deacon didn’t like it when people avoided his questions. It was a dead giveaway that something wasn’t right – or that someone was trying to avoid being caught in a lie.

Boy, did Hitchins glower. She obviously didn’t like being pushed. “In order to maximise the processing and monitoring capabilities of the satellite augmentations, the facilitation hubs need to be...” She paused, making little grasping motions with both hands as she searched for the right word. “They need to be _interlaced_ with your spinal nerves.”

Jesus, Mary and Joseph – _that_ did not sound good. “Hold up. I’m not the doctor here, obviously, but I’m pretty sure those things are pretty damn important.”

“Vital, in fact,” Mitch piped up.

Deacon couldn’t see the look Hitchins cast over her shoulder, but Mitch visibly paled. “Thank you, Mitch. Take Danielle and get me a progress report on the new monitoring interfaces.”

“Of course, doctor.”

They hurried out immediately, but Mitch cast a final warning glance over his shoulder. Deacon couldn’t pick it exactly, but he could take a pretty good stab at the message he was trying to convey: _be careful, man._ Deacon was inclined to listen.

“So, uh, bottom line it for me, doc.” Deacon’s heart rate was up. This was the first time he’d questioned any of Hitchins’ experiments; the first time he’d leaned towards caution in the lab at all. “If you don’t wire me up with this new framework, what’s that mean for the future of the project?”

Hitchins pursed her lips. She examined him shrewdly over the top of her black-rimmed glasses. “Bottom line, it means we’re limited. We scrap months of work, for one thing. For another, we’ve got a lowered ceiling for the load that can be carried by each new implant. It means more surgeries, and more stress placed on each of your targeted organs. Honestly, it means you won’t live out the project.”

Deacon’s heart dropped straight down to his shoes. “Was there much hope of that in the first place?”

“Just enough,” Hitchins said. She sighed, removed her glasses, and rubbed her nose between her thumb and forefinger. It was oddly humanising. “But frankly, John, now that we’ve been able to observe the stresses of implantations like this on a human subject, we’ve had to re-evaluate some of our early assumptions. Your recovery periods are getting longer, right? Your pain’s been worse?”

“Yeah.”  His chest still ached in the mornings as though the implant on his lung was really just shrapnel. “But if I don’t go for the new hardware, what would be the next step?”

Hitchins shrugged. “Probably some work on your other lung, next, then maybe we could look at some enhancements for the pancreas. Frankly, I’d be surprised if your current framework could handle any more than that.”

“How’d you like to guesstimate my current life expectancy?”

“I don’t guesstimate.”

“Come on, pal. Live a little.”

“It’s impossible to say. But if the implants themselves don’t kill you... you’ve got maybe an extra fifty years. A pretty solid achievement, but...somewhat less than I was hoping.”

 _You and me both, doc_. “And this procedure you want to do – interlacing this tech with my spinal nerves. Be straight with me, here, because believe me - I’m going to know if you’re lying. What are the risks?”

“This whole endeavour has been dangerous,” she repeated. Whatever the risks were, Hitchins obviously didn’t want to talk about them.

A few short weeks ago, Deacon wouldn’t even have bothered with the questions. He had one goal, and one goal only – live long enough to make it back home; long enough to save Charmer. But things had changed. Even Danielle had picked up on it.

Deacon was _happy_ , even though it was stupid; even though it was delusional. He knew that whatever this thing he had with Alex was, it was doomed- but it was also happening _now_. He was living in the present for the first time since Charmer died.

It was all temporary. Deacon knew that, as well; better than he knew his own name. That particular truth echoed in his ears every night, and it bounced around his skull every morning. He heard it when Alex whispered _I love you_ in his ear. He heard it when she said his name; when she laughed; when she sighed quietly in her sleep. He saw the future like a lightless hallway stretching out ahead of him – but right now, at least, he could deal with the darkness.

There was a good chance Hitchins’ experiments were going to kill him anyway. So he’d make it last as long as he could. Whatever _it_ was.

“I’d rather we stick with my current set-up, doc.” The words scraped his throat like sandpaper. “No new spine facilitators for me, thanks.”

Hitchins frowned. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah,” Deacon murmured. Everything felt heavy and liquid, like he’d mixed up a stimpak with Med-X. “That’s what I want.”

\---

It was like the weather was trying to keep up with Deacon’s moods. He’d never be able to call pre-war Boston _warm_ , but he could go without a coat now. The sun was shining. He no longer drew strange looks when he wore his sunglasses. Honest to god, there were birds singing. He’d arranged to meet Alex once she’d finished her study session at the library. There weren’t many places they could be together unobserved, so they were meeting at his apartment.

He’d given her a key. It hadn’t occurred to him to be embarrassed by his peeling paint or his leaky roof. His heart had been in his throat, though, pounding so hard he couldn’t breathe. What if it was too soon? What if she’d said no? But she’d kissed him and smiled into his lips.

She was waiting for him when he got home; lying on his threadbare couch, shoes off, with one leg hanging over the end. Her nose was buried in a book, her hair was a mess, and her hands were splattered with ink stains. Deacon was coming to know it as Alex’s signature finals-prep style – just like he was coming to know he’d always find her beautiful. She glanced up when the door closed, hit him with one of those blinding smiles and let her book hit the floor with a thud.

“Hey there, stranger.” She reached for him with both hands, and Deacon went to her like a desert wanderer to water.

“Hey.” He arranged himself above her and kissed her soundly, brushing fly-away strands of hair out of her face. “How’d the study go today?”

“Tort law can kiss my ass,” Alex murmured. “And it had better be quick about it, because I’m going to completely ace this final. How was your day off?”

He chuckled, moving one palm gently along her jawline to rest behind her ear. He stroked her cheek with his thumb as he spoke, matching the tempo to the rhythm of his words. “It was fine. Ran a few errands, caught up on some me time.” Lying wasn’t much fun since he’d lost the only person he could be honest with, but not even that could ruin this moment. It was just him and Alex; a quiet, comfortable closeness that belonged to no one else but them. “We could go out to grab some dinner if you like. I’m thinking something cheesy. Something with cheese, I mean, not something corny – I mean, not something with corn... Don’t look at me like that.”

Alex was smiling sadly. She caught his hand and kissed it, looking up at him with eyes that brimmed with all the same wordless promises that crowded up against Deacon’s sternum. “We can’t, Dee.”

Deacon knew that. “We could order in.”

“Italian, maybe?”

“Sounds good to me.”

They ate directly from their take-out boxes. Deacon propped his feet up on the coffee table, and Alex threw her legs over his. He had veal parmigiana and she had chicken risotto – but as far as Deacon was concerned, none of the pleasure was in the eating. It was all about the warmth of her body next to his; the music in her laughter; that feeling that no matter what happened, Charmer would be there to back him up. It was an illusion, of course, and Deacon knew it. But not even that could ruin this moment.

“I’ve got to go home tomorrow,” Alex said around a mouthful of food.

Deacon’s heart sank. “But –“

“Only for a few hours!” She was trying to hide a little grin. She _liked_ to know he wanted her here. “I need to grab some clothes, mow the lawn...make the place looked a little lived in.”

Deacon adopted his sulkiest expression. “Well, if it’s between me and the grass...”

She scoffed. “You have to work, anyway.”

“What’s your point? I’ll still know you’re gone.” Deacon put his food aside. He let one hand rest on her knee while the other skimmed up and down her calf. Her tights were only thin, and he could feel every tiny movement of her muscles through the fabric. “It’s nice to be able to think about you lying on my couch.”

Alex abandoned her risotto on the coffee table and raised a playful eyebrow. “Lying on your couch, reading about tort law.”

“Hey, tort law is _sexy_ , sugar.”

She laughed, earthy and quiet, and freed the leg he’d been caressing. Deacon didn’t resist as she drew it away from him, because she just gathered it under herself and moved to straddle him. He rested his hands on her waist, and she leaned in to kiss his neck; trailed ghosting, breathy kisses along his jawline and up to his ear. “Is this sexy enough for you?” she whispered.

“I think we can do better.”

She just laughed, fisted a hand in his hair, and kissed him like the goddamn world was ending. They made love on the couch, surrounded by scattered take-out containers and discarded textbooks – and for a while, Deacon was able to forget the end really was coming.

\---

“What’s your name?” Roger sounded fairly chipper today.

Then again, maybe Deacon was just projecting. He’d been carrying a little light around inside his chest all day. Every coffee Deacon churned out was a work of caffeinated art. His uniform was crisp and clean; even _ironed_. His irritable customers missed out on Deacon’s normal sarcasm – instead, they got a cheery smile and his best _have a good morning!_

“You know my name,” Roger’s customer sighed. “I come in every day.”

“Roger’s not great with faces,” Deacon chimed in from behind the espresso machine. “It’s Harry, right?”

The man brightened immediately. “Thank you! Jesus, nice to have a bit of recognition.”

Ordinarily, Deacon would have treated himself to a therapeutic eye-roll at that point. The guy was wearing a security badge, for god’s sake, and it had his name on it! But Deacon was walking, talking sunshine today, so all he did was grin. “One extra-hot cappuccino, coming right up!”

Roger sent Deacon a sidelong glare. “What’s got you so insufferable today?”

“I had a glass of whole milk with breakfast.”

“You got _laid_ , didn’t you?”

Deacon shook his head, but Roger’s eyes bugged out of his head anyway.

“Alex? No way, man! She’s too hot for you.”

Deacon’s male pride smarted at that, but he knew better than to take the bait. “I’m telling you, buddy, calcium isn’t just good for bones. It’s good for the _soul_.”

Roger scoffed. “Right.”

“I’ll have a skim latte,” the next customer said, glaring at them both. “No hurry _,_ fellas.”

Deacon just grinned. “Not a problem!”

But that all ended just after the mid-morning rush. The phone rang, and Roger answered with his usual curt greeting – but the sudden and ferocious curiosity on his face told Deacon something wasn’t right.

“Alex!” Roger exclaimed. “John’s with a customer right now, but if you want to give me a message...”

Deacon was over there in a flash, tugging the receiver out of the kid’s grip. He could hear Alex speaking, quiet and distorted, as they struggled. He had to kick Roger in the shins before he let go.

“Alex! Alex! Wait, hang on, it’s me. What’s up?”

“Oh _god_.” Her voice was high-pitched and quivering; raspy and breathless. “I, um – I’ve just gotten home, and there’s a letter here about Nate. Jesus, Dee, it’s – he’s –“ She broke off on a sob and gasping breath.

Deacon went cold, like he’d fallen in the Charles and the water was closing over his head. Nate couldn’t be dead. History didn’t work like that; couldn’t work like that.

Right?

“Take a deep breath,” Deacon managed to answer. He was trying hard to follow his own advice. “What happened?”

“There – there was a – _fuck_ , I can’t believe this is happening –“

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

Deacon didn’t think he’d ever heard her – Alex or Charmer; lawyer or otherwise – admit to that before. “Where are you?”

“Still at home.”

“Stay there, ok? I’m going to come to you.”

“You don’t have a car.”

“So what? I’ll – I’ll get someone else to –“

“Nate’s not dead,” she said sharply. She paused, then; took a deep breath that seemed to draw Deacon’s soul to her through the phone lines. “They, uh, they say he’s been wounded. That he put himself between one of his squadmates and a Chinese minigun.”

Jesus. Deacon’s head was swimming. “But he’s not dead? He’s okay?”

She tried to scoff, or laugh, or _something_ , but all she managed was another sob. “Medical discharge. But it – it doesn’t sound good.”

“I’m coming to see you.”

“No.” He could hear her fumbling with her keys as she spoke; hear her jamming them in the car door like she had the owner of that Chinese minigun at knifepoint. “No, I’m driving back to your place. Can you – will you meet me there?”

“Of course, sugar. Just breathe. I’ll meet you there.”

Roger didn’t argue. Maybe he’d reached the obvious conclusion, or maybe he’d just heard something dangerous in Deacon’s voice. Either way, Deacon was waiting by his door when Alex arrived. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her mascara was smudged. She’d wrapped herself in an overcoat despite the balmy weather, and there was a crumpled letter clutched in her hand. He gathered her into a hug the moment she reached him, and she clung to him the way a drowning woman clings to a life raft; buried her face in his shoulder like the rhythm of his breathing or the beating of his heart might somehow fix everything.

There was something about the way she sobbed that had Deacon’s heart skipping beats. She clung to him just a little bit too tightly. She was just a little too broken.

And Deacon was afraid.

They found their way upstairs and onto the couch. Alex clutched Deacon’s hand while he read the letter, and he found himself holding onto her for support.

“Paralysed,” he croaked. He didn’t know why he read it out loud. Maybe he needed to hear it said. Maybe he thought the syllables would come together differently if he could just get them off that page. “Jesus, sugar, I’m so –“

“Please don’t say it,” Alex whispered. She was squeezing his hand so tightly he was sure something was going to break. Her shoulders shook – once, and only briefly – and she made a quiet sound that might have been another sob. It might have been a laugh, too; mad appreciation of the universe’s cruelty. “They’re flying him home. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow._

Alex took a deep breath. She’d stopped sobbing, but the tears lingered on her cheeks like pale and glistening scars. “There are some things I’m going to have to do.”

Deacon knew that tone. He’d heard it before: when Charmer went into the Institute, alone and unsupported, unaware of what she’d find; and when Charmer came _out_ of the Institute, grieving but resolute. It made his heart cry out in sympathy, but it cried out in fear as well.

He’d known it was only a matter of time.

“I’m going to take care of him.” She was Alex. She was Charmer. She was everything she’d ever been, in that moment, and all she ever would be. There was always something noble about her, and right now it was plain as day: she was courage and quiet sacrifice. She was someone who kept her promises.

“I’m going to transfer to the county community college,” she continued. Her grip on Deacon’s hand was still like a vice. “They’ll let me finish my degree via correspondence, so that I can care for Nate. I spoke to his mom before I drove over here. She’s going to help.”

She hadn’t said it yet. Not really. But Deacon knew it was coming, because his lungs were utterly empty, and they simply refused to refill.

_You gotta breathe._

Then Alex’s hand was on the back of his head and she was pulling him into a kiss – a harsh, ragged, _desperate_ kiss; the kind of kiss he knew she’d want him to remember. Deacon wasn’t thinking when he pulled her into his lap; wasn’t thinking when he held her tight against him. Alex wrapped her arms around his neck, and for a moment Deacon didn’t think that he could take it. He couldn’t think. He never could.

He’d known it was only a matter of time.

She eventually broke the kiss. She had to. “So...so that means that we have to end this, Dee.”

Deacon would have sighed, but his lungs still felt so _empty_ ; would have cried, but he really felt like he’d forgotten how. “I know, sugar. I know.”

“I want you to know –“

“Don’t say it. Please.”

It was raining when she left. He walked her to her car and stood at the window, huddled under his umbrella. He promised her a free double-strength coffee next time she was in the shop, and she thanked him with a smile – but they both knew it was a fantasy.

Deacon saw Nate’s return on the television. They recorded Alex waiting for him on the tarmac, looking every inch the brave and beautiful army wife. They recorded the tears she cried as the plane landed, and they recorded her kissing her selfless husband in greeting - even though he couldn’t move. Deacon felt much the same, standing frozen in front of the coffee shop’s television screen. It was like his nerve ends were coated in sheet ice; like the chill of pre-war Boston was part of his frozen bone marrow.

A month passed, then two. Time dragged on in a cold and weary haze. Deacon missed most of his appointments with Danielle. He showed up for work, but only because he had to; only because the hypnotising barista routine was the only thing that kept him going.

He’d known it was only a matter of time.

Then he saw her on the news again, all dressed up in a pastel pink dress and teetering high heels. They recorded her clutching her brave, handsome and _standing_ husband’s arm. They recorded her talking about Nate’s miraculous recovery. They recorded him espousing the United States’ virtues. They recorded the perfect, all-American couple kissing chastely on their front lawn. All they were missing were a few bald eagles and a suit of power armour.

Deacon called Danielle, then, and asked her if it wasn’t too late to change his mind about the new implants.

She sounded uncertain. “I could talk to Hitchins, I guess. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“Yeah,” Deacon murmured. “That’s what I want.”


	16. Sixteen

Deacon was ready to feel scared when he left home on that fateful morning. Surgery was basically old hat for him now, but this time would be different. This was _big_. This was general anaesthetic, hands-inside-your-spinal-cord _major_ , and it would be totally natural to feel a bit anxious about that.

But Deacon wasn’t scared. He wasn’t even nervous. If anything, Deacon was eager; anticipating; _ready_. Right now, he needed to take action more than he needed to breathe. He needed to claw back some measure of control over his life. So his hands were steady when he locked his apartment door and hid his keys behind the loose brick in the stairwell. He offered a smile to the old lady that passed him on the street, and he held his head high as he made his way to Hitchins’ lab.

But his heart dropped into his shoes two blocks from his building. There was a woman leaving the law offices, not twenty feet away from him. She had a cardboard box clutched to her chest, piled high with sundry books and stationary, and a coat slung over her arm. Her soft hair was pulled into a careless twist, and the tiny scar above her brow seemed oddly stark in the morning light.

On reflection, Deacon shouldn’t have been surprised to see Alex. He should have known the universe would throw him one more glimpse of heartache before his goddamn hail mary. She glanced up as she bounded down the building steps; saw him, stumbled – and only a lucky save kept her from pitching face-first into the pavement.

Their eyes met. She didn’t glance around to check for bystanders. She didn’t look shocked, embarrassed or worried. She just looked sad. The link between them stretched out into infinity, even though they couldn’t have stood there for more than a few seconds.

It was still a long look, and it still said everything. It was loaded with the weight of too much time – and far, _far_ too little.

She turned on her heel and escaped back into the law offices. Deacon didn’t go after her. He wasn’t scared, he reminded himself. He was taking action.

But his heart did flutter a little when Mitch handed him a patient gown, and it was well and truly racing when he climbed atop a gurney and they wheeled him down to the operating theatre. Danielle was there, nodding reassuringly from behind her hygienic mask as the surgery bot’s rotors whirred. Mitch recited something to do with sodium thiopental doses as he prepared Deacon’s IV, and he looked like he thought the steady stream of numbers might be comforting.

None of it helped, though. This was hands-inside-your-spinal cord major – and Deacon _was_ scared.

“It’s going to be all right, John.” Danielle moved to block the robot from Deacon’s view and patted him on the arm. He couldn’t make out her face through the glare of the overhead light. “You’ll be out cold for a while, and when you wake up you’ll have a whole new operating system.” She turned to Mitch. “Let’s do it.”

“All right.” Mitch sounded nervous, too. “Count backwards from ten for me, buddy. You’re going to be fine.”

“You know the counting backwards thing is...bullshit...right?” Deacon clung to consciousness just long enough to look for a laugh. Neither of them obliged.

Mitch did have one more thing to add, though. Deacon barely heard it through the thick black fog closing in on him.

“Poor bastard.”

\---

People under anaesthetic didn’t dream. Deacon knew that – but still, he could have sworn he dreamed of Alex; of H-bombs and crying babies and dark and silent cryo chambers; of all the pain and terror that awaited her if Deacon followed through with his plan. People under anaesthetic certainly didn’t wallow in guilt, but Deacon could have sworn he did. After all that had happened between them, could he really let her take her family down into that vault? Could he really let it all happen again?

Deacon awoke to the smell of antiseptic and the steady _beep, beep, beep_ of a heart rate monitor. He was lying on stiff white sheets in a dim and joyless room. The anaesthetic had only just started to wear off, it seemed, because he was still too groggy to do more than open his eyes and stare blearily at the ceiling.

“Shit. He’s waking up.” Mitch didn’t sound happy about it. “Get over here!”

Someone arrived at Deacon’s bedside and pried his eyelids open as far as they would go; jammed a torch in his face and waved it around like a searchlight. He was still too woozy to fight them off, but he did his damnedest to make his eyeballs roll back inside his head.

“Finally, a fucking response to stimuli,” he heard Danielle mutter. She took his hand in hers. Her latex gloves felt strange against his palm. “Squeeze my hand, John.”

Deacon groaned inwardly, but he obeyed.

“John.” Her voice was shaking. “If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

Danielle was losing it. He tried to open his mouth to tell her so, but it turned out sodium thiopental was made of sterner stuff than him - so he didn’t manage it. He’d have to remember to mention that one to Hancock. He settled for squeezing her hand again, wondering if he was going to be sick.

“Shit,” Danielle whispered. “I don’t know if you can hear me, John, but if you _can_ – don’t panic.”

As if saying that would do anything _but_ make someone panic.

Danielle cleared her throat before continuing. “The, uh – the surgery went well. Your new hardware’s all installed. Your old implants seem to be communicating with the new stuff, too.”

Deacon tried to nod, but he couldn’t.

And that’s when it hit him that his problem had nothing to do with lingering anaesthetic.

“Like I said,” she went on, “I don’t want you to panic. But as of this point – I mean, at the current time... Shit, I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” Her hand left his. Deacon heard her heels click across the room. He heard the door swing open, then creak shut on a rusty hinge.

Mitch cleared this throat. “But as of this point,” he said quietly, “it appears you’ve lost all motor function. Except for...well, except for eye movement. I, uh, feel like I should say congratulations for that. That part’s kind of incredible.”

Deacon knew there was a word for this sort of thing; when you learned a new word, or heard about a new band, and from that point on heard it _everywhere_ you went. He couldn’t remember the phrase. It was something that sounded German.

It turned out Deacon’s new thing was paralysis.

It was a good thing he couldn’t move, or he would have been screaming. The heart rate monitor let Mitch know what was going on, though. _Beep, beep, beep, beepbeepbeepbeepbeep._

“Don’t panic,” Mitch said hurriedly. If Deacon could move, he would have punched him. “I said _as of this point_. You could regain all your motor function. It could just be your nervous system adjusting to your new wiring. I mean, your eyes still work –“ He pinched Deacon’s arm, and nodded sharply when Deacon narrowed his eyes dangerously. “And it looks like you can still feel pain. That’s a good sign, man!

“Or...well. You could be stuck like this forever.”

Jesus. Deacon should have been having a goddamn heart attack. He _was_ having a heart attack, if the frantic shrieking of the cardiac monitor was anything to go on. But all he could think about was how Alex had looked when she got that letter about Nate; how she’d clung to Deacon’s shoulders, pale-faced and terrified, and sobbed into his shoulder.

 _Please don’t say it._ She’d squeezed his hand so tight.

Would it be like that now?

“We’re going to keep you here,” Mitch was saying. “We’ve got you in a pretty old building. No one even uses these rooms anymore - but we’ll be in to check on you _all_ the time.”

Deacon was suddenly full of rage. Mitch was just _standing there_ , straight-backed and tall, and in two hundred and eleven years he’d be just as full of it as he was now. He’d _killed_ Charmer, indirect or not, and he’d ruined Deacon’s life. He was the reason Deacon was lying here in a cold and lonely stretcher bed. He was the reason Deacon could feel every itch that he couldn’t move to scratch. He was the reason Deacon’s head and heart and soul all ached.

But he’d be in to check on him _all the time._

Mitch sighed. “I’m sorry, John. Kind of makes you wish you could just take it all back, doesn’t it? You know... just wind back the clock.”

This was it, then. Deacon was going to die. It was the middle of 2076, for fuck’s sake – unless Hitchins decided to dissect him, he’d be lying here in the agony of boredom and decay; painfully aware of every aching, eternal moment until the H-bombs fell on his head. He was going to die in this hospital room, surrounded by bleeping machinery and green linoleum. He was never going to see the sun again.

He’d die without ever telling Alex the truth.

Or, hell, maybe he _wouldn’t_ die. Maybe this dingy backroom in the doomed halls of learning would survive the initial armageddon. Maybe it’d be slow-release gamma rays that finally got him; turned him hard and rough, crispy and immortal. Maybe he’d get to live forever, bound to his hospital bed by invisible chains; lingering in silent, unmoving agony until his brain finally shattered beneath the weight of the endless years.

Jesus Christ. Deacon had to close his eyes.

Mitch must have seen his tears, because he cleared his throat awkwardly again. “We, uh, we obviously don’t have your next-of-kin details. But I called the coffee shop Hitchins had you set up at. A guy called Roger put me in touch with your girlfriend.”

If he could, Deacon would have buried his face in his hands.

“She’s going to come in and see you. We couldn’t tell her what really happened to you, of course...but I guess it’s not like you’re going to give us away, is it?”

Deacon wanted to scream. He wanted to throw something. He wanted to cry.

But he couldn’t.

\---

Deacon heard Alex coming long before he saw her.

“Why have you got him tucked away back here?” She sounded _angry_ , beneath the obvious distress. Whoever was escorting her muttered something unintelligible. She shooed them away at the door, but it was a long, gut-twisting moment before she actually entered. She brought flowers - wild ones, it looked like; small and blue and beautiful, wrapped round with a strip of white gauze. His eyes stayed trained on her, of course. He couldn’t look away.

“Holy hell, Dee.” She covered her hand with her mouth, trying to hide the tremble in her lip – but Deacon could see it written all over her face. Her eyes filled with tears, but she forced them back. She lowered her hand and tried a tremulous smile. “You, uh...you look good, I guess. I was expecting more blood, for some reason.”

What the hell did they tell her? Not the truth, obviously. His eyes followed her as she crossed the room and placed the flowers on the dresser, and Deacon _tried_ – god, he tried – to make her _feel_ it. All of it. All the things he wanted to say, but couldn’t; all the things he could have said, but didn’t.

“They told me you can’t move. Except for – except for your eyes.” She clutched the hem of her dress with pale, shaking fingers as she came to stand beside him. She reached out to stroke his hair; jerkily, like she wasn’t sure what to do, or like she wasn’t sure how to stop. “I’m so sorry. It’s like the universe is punishing us – punishing _you_. If anyone deserves this, it’s me.” She had to pause, then, to fight back tears. “But...but at least you not talking might make this easier. Or it might not.”

Deacon could only stare at her. He knew his gaze was vacant, but she must have been able to feel the sudden spike in his heart rate – or maybe the monitoring equipment gave it away. _Beep, beep, beep, beepbeepbeepbeep._

She took his hand and cradled it in one of hers, her thumb stroking softly across his limp and useless palm. He could still feel it, even if he couldn’t do anything about it, and maybe that was the worst part; to feel without recourse; to love without hope.

“This...well. This is fucking awful.” She kissed the back of his hand, swift and pained. “When I saw you the other day, I almost broke. I almost ran over to you and begged you to take me back.” She paused to take a shallow and shuddering breath. “I wish I had.”

_Me too, sugar. Me too._

“ _Damn_ it. I know you couldn’t tell me if you were, Dee, but I – but I hope you’re not in any pain.”

_You gotta breathe, baby. Please breathe._

She did; deeply. Raggedly. “I, um...I wish I could tell you I’ll be here every day, but I won’t. This changes – well, it changes _everything_ , I guess, but it doesn’t change anything about what happened between us. Nate’s at home, waiting for me. I can’t come back here.”

She paused, like she expected him to sigh, or yell, or maybe beg her not to go. Deacon would have done those things – all of them, in whatever order and at whatever volume she preferred – and _more_ , but he couldn’t lift a finger.

“There, uh... There’s something else.” She squeezed his hand tighter. He could feel her heartbeat through her palm. “It turns out I’m pregnant.” She said it with a rigid puppet’s smile; an ironic mask that crumbled like tissue paper at the edges. Deacon’s heart dropped right down to his toes. The cardio monitor went berserk. _Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep._

She grimaced, her gaze falling to rest on their intertwined fingers. “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to keep it. I mean, Nate’s healthy, and he’s back! So it’s time for one of our big steps. We’re already married, and we’ve already got a mortgage. Only thing left is a baby.” She raked her free hand through her hair and held it there. Maybe it was because she needed to feel taller and stronger. Maybe it was because she just needed something to hold onto. “My mother’s turning in her goddamn grave right now, but I – I’m not sure if it’s Nate’s, or –“

She broke off and _sobbed_. “Oh god, Dee, I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, shoulders shaking; tears falling free and fast.

People always talked about fates worse than death – and if one existed, surely this was even worse.

_Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god._

_Alex, baby, I love you._

She had nothing to be sorry for. Even if she did, Deacon wouldn’t have blamed her – because that feeling in his chest: that ache that kept him awake at night; that yearning that pulled him towards her, always... That wasn’t at all her fault. He loved her so much that it _hurt_.

He always would. And there was nothing she could do to make that go away.

God, he wished he could tell her that.

She loosened her arms to kiss him gently, and when she pulled away she had to brush her tears off his cheeks. “I love you,” she whispered.

Then she was gone.


	17. Seventeen

The months dragged on. May came and went, then summer, then fall. It turned out that time wasn’t nearly so linear as people liked to think. It passed slowly at first – _agonisingly_ slowly; so slowly Deacon thought monotony might kill him before the bombs did. But the bombs were coming. Oh, yeah. The end of the world was less than a year away, and Deacon could do nothing about it. He couldn’t save Charmer. He couldn’t save himself. He couldn’t lift his goddamn head.

Hitchins’ experiments continued, even though her lab rat was broken. Sometimes Danielle would come in and make idle, one-sided conversation about her little boy, her husband or her dog while she dug around in Deacon’s spine. She was presumably looking for the on switch. Thank god she remembered to use anaesthetic on the man who couldn’t move. It was only a local, but Deacon would take what he could get. Mitch took pity on him, though. He took to sedating Deacon for long periods at a time, allowing him some blank, blissful escape from empty walls and heart monitors. Maybe Mitch was the only reason Deacon was still sane. Ironic, really.

It was easy to lose track of time, but Deacon couldn’t help but try to keep a countdown in his head. What month was it now? How long had Mitch put him under for this time? How long was he conscious in between doses?

How long until the bombs fell?

How long until Shaun was born?

Deacon was trying to forget that the little boy waiting for Charmer at Mercer safe house had red hair – but he was going to need a hell of a distraction to do that. Locked inside his own head, he didn’t have much to work with. He remembered his little notebook, lying forgotten in a cupboard inside his now abandoned apartment. He supposed the place must have been rented again by now. Deacon’s treasure trove of memories was probably long gone.

But he could summon the words easily enough, even if he couldn’t speak them; even if he’d never have a hope of writing them down.

 

_Alex’s coffee order was always a low-fat latte – sometimes with sugar, but only when she was feeling good. She always said she was saving the calories for dessert, but I never actually saw her eat dessert. She kept away from mirrors when we were naked._

 

As the time rolled by, Mitch and Danielle both started to let their bedside manner lapse. Danielle’s professionalism gave way to hyper-competence and efficiency, and Mitch’s easygoing manner vanished in the face of steadily rising stress levels. The man was growing increasingly withdrawn, even around Danielle, and he never addressed Deacon at all. They kept a careful rein on their conversations when they were fiddling around with Deacon’s implants – at first, anyway. But eventually, _inevitably_ , they started to accept what Deacon already knew. They could speak freely, because he would never be able to do anything with what he overheard.

Danielle was swapping out some circuitry in a facilitation hub somewhere between Deacon’s shoulder blades the first time university politics came up. Mitch was there to assist, handing her various implements from a tray of surgical tools whenever she asked.

“You okay, Mitch?” Danielle was speaking right into Deacon’s ear, but it was like he wasn’t even there.

“Fine.” He handed her something that looked much sharper than Deacon would have liked.

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m fine.”

“Right.” A moment of silence passed, but Deacon could sense Danielle struggling to hold something back. She failed. “Hitchins was way out of line, anyway.”

“I said it’s fine.”

“Yeah, I heard you. But let me bitch about my boss for a second, huh?”

Mitch sighed irritably. “All right. Go on.”

“Biointegration was her baby,” Danielle grumbled. She did something to Deacon’s implant that caused a hiss and a sudden spark, but she didn’t flinch. Deacon could smell smoke. If he hadn’t long passed the threshold of dread, he might have lost it. “I seem to recall you suggesting _ages ago_ that full-on mechanisation would be more efficient.”

“I remember that as well.” Mitch wasn’t bothering to hide his scowl any longer. It gave his face all sorts of shadows and valleys that weren’t there before. “I might quit if I wasn’t sure she’d find a way to blame these trials on me if she was ever found out.”

“You and me both. I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Mitch’s eyes flicked to Deacon, then back to Danielle. ”I don’t think he did, either.”

“She didn’t even give him a stipend,” Danielle scoffed. She pitched her voice lower, obviously imitating Hitchins. “Here, crazy volunteer for illegal biomech implantation trials. I know you’re risking life and limb to help me with my experiments, but I can’t actually pay you. How about you go work in a coffee shop and live in shitty student accommodation while I slowly replace all your working parts with machinery?”

Mitch just nodded. He was watching Deacon with an expression that could only be described as ominous.

There were about seven million things Deacon wanted to contribute to this particular conversation – but of course he couldn’t. After Mitch and Danielle left, their attempts at fixing him abandoned, Deacon’s silent comebacks all played out in his head like a flickering holotape. He ran out of steam pretty quickly, so he went back to words he _could_ bring to mind easily; so swiftly it was like they were always there, lurking beneath the surface of his thoughts while they waited for their chance to breathe.

 

_Charmer loved the rain. I think it was just because she missed real running water, but she used to carry around a bag full of Rad-X just so she’d be able to sit outside in a downpour. We found an old fishing wharf and some patio chairs out in the fens once, and she talked me into sitting out there with her in the middle of a goddamn hurricane. By the time it was over, I was sure I was going to freeze to death. But I didn’t care._

Mitch and Danielle’s visits were relatively frequent, at first, but they eventually slowed to a trickle. They never stopped altogether – Deacon would go for weeks in a drug-induced stupor, sometimes, before one of them would appear to open his back up like a zipper – but Deacon couldn’t be sure whether they were a blessing or not. When it was only one of them in the room, they were both silent and uncomfortable. When they were both there, they talked about things Deacon didn’t want to hear.

For a while, Deacon clung to the hope that their efforts might somehow fix him. They swapped his implants in and out. They tried new drug combinations and power settings. They hooked him up to electrodes and put the facilitators through their paces. But nothing worked.

They talked of heightened tensions, both inside and outside Hitchins’ lab – completely freely, like Deacon’s presence didn’t concern them at all; like he was simply part of the furniture. They talked about the Vaults being gossiped about across the city. Danielle and her family apparently lived up in Concord, and they were thinking about applying for places in Vault 111. She said this quite calmly, like she was talking about where they might take their next vacation. Mitch apparently had a college friend who worked at Vault-Tec. He told Danielle she was better off getting her own bunker.

Deacon was fairly swimming in sedatives at that point in their conversation, but he was lucid enough for a flash of understanding to slice through the haze. Would Mitch’s friend warn him when the bombs were due to drop? He _had_ to survive the apocalypse somehow, right? Deacon couldn’t help but look at Danielle in a new and depressing light. The bombs were due to fall on a Saturday morning. Would she be at home with her kid? Would her husband be home? Would they build that bunker?

Would it even matter if they did?

 

_Charmer never told me about that morning. Not the details, anyway, just like I never told her the details of my own little tragedy. It bothered me for a while, because a truth like that would have balanced out a tonne of the lies I told her. But then I realised I didn’t need to hear it. She understood me - damaged, desperate mess that I was - and I understood her._

 

They talked about Hitchins and her plans, mostly in hushed voices and scathing tones.

“Go back to square one, she says,” Mitch muttered one day as he adjusted an electrode on Deacon’s spine. “We _can’t_ go back to square one. Square one is technical drawings and mathematics. You know how I feel about those.”

Danielle chuckled softly and handed him a screwdriver. Deacon tried not to think about what Mitch must be doing to his neck. “She’s just cranky. She’d be crazy to hit reset on this project. His muscle atrophy has halted – hell, it never even started. That’s amazing.”

Deacon’s ears pricked up.

“He’s still paralysed,” Mitch observed.

“Minor details,” she said dismissively. “We’re months – maybe _weeks_ – away from getting them to approve a legitimate trial. Maybe John just wasn’t compatible. He could have been a statistical outlier.”

Deacon didn’t enjoy that past tense. He wasn’t _dead_. Not yet, anyway. He’d know if he was. He didn’t define death as the absence of life any longer – that was a circular definition, really, and one that would be hard to work with if you didn’t know what the absence of life felt like. But dead people didn’t suffer. They hit a peak; a maximum threshold; a solid, immovable ceiling, and then it ended.

So, yeah. Deacon would know if he was dead.

“She’s been getting worse since Zimmer started putting together his little brain trust,” Mitch commented. He returned the screwdriver, and Danielle handed him a tube of wound sealant.

“ _Little_ , he says. It only includes some of the biggest names at CIT.”

“But not Hitchins’ name.”

“Too bad for her. Maybe they find her too abrasive.” Danielle suddenly frowned. “Why are you smirking like that?”

“They invited me to join.”

” _What?_ Holy – holy _shit_. You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“Well...wow. Congratulations. You should invite me, too.”

“Why do _you_ want to join? I thought you’d well and truly hitched your carriage to...Hitchins.”

Danielle rolled her eyes at his pun. “Zimmer is a legend, Mitch. Can you imagine the kind of doors that will open up for people who can say they’ve worked with him?”

“There was a catch.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve got to show him the results of our trials.”

“You mean...” Danielle hadn’t looked Deacon in the eyes for weeks – _months?_ – but she was sure as hell looking at him now.

“Yeah.”

“Well,” she said slowly. “It’ll be the perfect time to introduce me.”

Much to Deacon’s dismay, they concluded their adjustments in silence, and he was left to stew in frustrated curiosity until the IV delivered his next dose of sedatives.

 

_Alex must have finished her law degree by now. She never talked about graduation like it was a priority, but she’s not the type of person to leave something unfinished. I wonder why she never asked me about those grad school applications I told her I was waiting on. Maybe she knew I was lying. Maybe she didn’t care. Or maybe she just knew better than to dig too deep._

 

It was a minor miracle, really, that Deacon was lucid when his next visitor came along. When he realised who it was, he gave some serious thought to feigning unconsciousness – but he took too long to decide, and he was caught with his eyes wide open. Deacon’s heart almost stopped when he made eye contact. _Fuck._

It was Nate - in the flesh; healthy and whole. He was a little thinner than when Deacon had last seen him, and maybe a little more tan as well. He was walking sort of strangely, like he was favouring a tender spot around his ribs – but none of that mattered, because he was striding over to Deacon’s bedside with a purpose, and Deacon couldn’t have defended himself if he tried.

But Nate didn’t hit him. He didn’t try to strangle him, either. He just grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and sat down beside Deacon’s bed. His presence didn’t need explaining. His clenched fists; the little muscle working in his jaw; his puffy, bloodshot eyes – it was like he was wearing a sign on his forehead.

But Nate said it anyway. “I _know_ , John.” The words fell from his lips like stones, and maybe only Deacon’s new status as a cripple was keeping Nate from beating him to death with them. Or maybe not. Nate was a good guy, and that had always been half Deacon’s problem. Even if he was always running away from the life he’d asked Alex to make. Even if he couldn’t love her half as much as Deacon did.

But that wasn’t fair. Nobody _could._

“I know,” Nate repeated. He was staring Deacon down like he thought sheer fury might turn his wife’s lover to ash. But then he sighed. “I bet you’re scared shitless, huh? Don’t worry. I’m not going to smother you with your pillow or anything. Sure would be easy, though.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in.

If Deacon could have opened his mouth, he might have told Nate to go ahead and give it a try. He’d no idea how long he’d been lying here, because the weeks blurred into months when Mitch was generous enough with the sedatives. But Deacon couldn’t face the thought of them becoming years. Decades. _Centuries._ He was pretty sure he’d hit his threshold a long time ago.

Nate was looking him up and down. “It sucks, doesn’t it? That trapped feeling. Knowing you’ve got no control over _anything_ – not even your own body.” His face had grown pale. He obviously hadn’t forgotten his own brush with Deacon’s nightmare. “I wish we’d never met you, John. We brought you into our house, and what did you do?”

 _I slept with your wife_ , Deacon’s infuriatingly lucid brain supplied.

Nate sighed softly. “You made Alex fall in love with you.” He hung his head for a moment, dragging his hand across his eyes.

Was he crying?

But no - there were no tears, or at least none that he was willing to let Deacon see. “You’ll want to hear what she – how I found out about the affair.” His mouth twisted around the word like it was poison; like he knew as well as Deacon did that an _affair_ wasn’t at all the same as what they’d had. “She was already in the kitchen when I woke up yesterday morning. She was standing over the sink. I thought she was doing the dishes.” Nate’s fists clenched tighter as he spoke.

Where did he get that strength? To sit here and detail his pain for the man that caused it - Deacon didn’t understand. He wasn’t afraid of Nate, but his heart rate was climbing.

“But she was _crying_. So I did what a good husband does, you know? I held her, I consoled her, I kissed her, and then I asked her what she was crying about.” He scoffed at himself. “I figured it was just a pregnancy thing.

“You know what she said, John?”

Deacon didn’t have a clue. He had a hope, though, and it was burning a hole in his chest right where his heart should be.

“She turned to look at me, and she clung onto the collar of my shirt like she was afraid I’d disappear. Then she said _I’ve lost the man I love.”_

Nate stood up abruptly; kicked his chair across the room. There _were_ tears in the corners of his eyes now, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care. He braced himself on the edge of Deacon’s bed; breathed deep, like he just couldn’t pull down enough oxygen, no matter what he did; no matter what he sacrificed.

Deacon knew the feeling.

“And I – oh god, you know what I said, John?” Nate gave a choked laugh. He covered his eyes. “I said _shh, honey. It’s okay. I’m right here with you, and I’m not going anywhere._ ”

That hole in Deacon’s chest was getting bigger. Jesus – what he wouldn’t give to say that to her himself. _Alex, baby, I love you._

“She told me everything.” All at once, Nate’s anguished energy left him. He released his death grip on the gurney rail and leaned sideways against the wall. He just _deflated_ , like his confession of a confession suddenly made it real; like hearing her words repeated finally rammed them home.

“You know, I was telling myself on the ride over here that looking you in the eye would make it easier to deal with - like if I could confront you face-to-face, I’d get _angry_. But it’s not fucking helping. I still - I still can’t accept it.” The lines on his face seemed to deepen with every word he spoke.

He looked like he’d been stabbed.

“You must think I’m naive, but...I don’t think she’s ever even lied to me before this. Ever. But I can’t work out if it’s _her_ that changed, or if it’s me.” He sighed again. “I can’t leave her, John. I don’t want to.”

He stood there for a long while, working the end of his sleeve back and forth between his fingers and staring at Deacon wordlessly, like the anger he’d been waiting for might flare to life if he hung around long enough; like the silent, unmoving cripple in front of him might spring into action and give him a reason to _hate_. Because Nate didn’t hate him. It was as obvious as it was mind boggling.

Deacon would probably never understand.

When Nate finally went to leave, he paused at the door. Deacon had thought he’d hit his limit; that he was full up on suffering, and nothing that anyone could say or do to him now would change that. But Nate’s parting words were going to bounce around inside his skull until he finally found a working definition for death.

“I feel sorry for you, John. It must hurt to have come so close.”

\---

Deacon was slipping in and out of consciousness when they brought Zimmer to see him. He only caught flashes of faces; fragments of whispers; glimpses of his starring scene in the shadowy world of CIT politics. Zimmer was a faceless, indistinct figure looming over his bed. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, like they were all doing their best impersonations of Tinker Tom at a Railroad meeting. Danielle’s hands were shaking slightly when she propped Deacon up to display his tech to their visitor. It was a blessing that he was only half conscious, because she forgot the anaesthetic when she opened him up.

“This is incredible,” Zimmer said. He sounded like a heavy smoker. Possibly a whiskey drinker as well. “But the paralysis is permanent?”

“I don’t think so,” Mitch said from somewhere in the darkness that crowded in on Deacon’s vision. “We’re making progress.”

“Good. You two are exactly the kind of people we need if we’re to have a chance of surviving these uncertain times.”

“What do you mean?” Danielle sounded nervous. Stage fright? Or maybe just normal, healthy fear; fear of the end of days.

“I mean,” Zimmer said grandly, “that innovation is our only hope of saving humanity.” He raised a shadowy finger and pointed it at Deacon. “Even if this man never walks again, you two have succeeded in proving we have a chance.”

_Well fuck you too, asshole._

They closed Deacon up and lay him back down. Danielle patted him on the shoulder as they left. Their words were distorted as they echoed back along the corridor, but one of Mitch’s eager whispers reached him as clear as day.

“Zimmer is amazing,” he said wonderingly. “He’s the future of the institute.”

Deacon would have dearly loved to scream. Of _course_ he was.

\---

Mitch was working late tonight, aided by a bottle of vodka and a pizza that smelled like bacon and mayonnaise. He’d toyed around with Deacon’s implants for a while, but now he was just sitting on the chair beside the bed, a mountain of paperwork and technical documents piled atop Deacon’s blankets. He had a calendar open beside him. Deacon had been longing for a glimpse of one of those ever since he lost the ability to fetch one. It seemed somehow fitting that he didn’t get his chance until it would hurt.

October 22, 2077. It had to be after midnight, based on the shadows under Mitch’s eyes.

Jesus. This was it. The last midnight the pre-war world would ever see.

He wondered what Alex was doing tonight. He couldn’t quite believe how much time he’d lost to Mitch’s drugs. She would have had the baby by now. Shaun might be crying right this very moment. She might get up to feed him, and Nate might go with her – because Nate _loved_ her, despite everything, and he’d probably be killing himself in his attempts to prove it. Would Nate wonder if Shaun was really his? Would it matter if he wasn’t?

However they were spending their last night, Deacon hoped they were happy – even if he’d done his damnedest to fuck it up.

If things were different; if it was Deacon that was whole and healthy, and it was _Nate_ lying wasted, useless and forgotten on a gurney somewhere, Deacon knew what he would have done. He’d had an eternity to imagine what he would have said.

He would have started with _I love you._ He’d had a long fucking time to think, and he’d realised there were a lot of different ways you could tease out those three short syllables; brightly, like the sun was rising and she was rubbing sleep out of her eyes; long and low, like when she pressed her soft body up against him and dragged her lips along his stubbled jaw; urgently, like he couldn’t breathe until he could make her understand how much he needed her.

He would have told her how much he missed her. He would have told her he was sorry. He would have told her _everything_ , and he would have let her decide what to do with it. He had no doubt that she would have believed him – though he couldn’t explain why. He would have told her about Nate; about Shaun; about all of it. He would have crawled out from beneath his mountain of lonely burdens, and then he would have buried her in them.

It was better than a real grave. Deacon was in a pretty good position to appreciate the difference.

_I feel sorry for you, John. It must hurt to have come so close._

He just wanted it to be over. Christ, God, Atom, _whoever_ – all he wanted was for it to be over.


	18. Eighteen

Mitch was still tangled in his cobwebs and his research papers by the morning. Deacon didn’t have a clock – or even a window – so the only evidence he had of the passage of the hours was the rate of Mitch’s frustrated sighs, the deepening lines around his mouth, and the ferocity with which he rubbed his eyes.

It was t-minus… Well. It was t-minus something; t-minus some number much smaller than Deacon would like.

He kept telling himself that this failure didn’t really mean anything. Charmer was dead. She had been for a long time, now, and striking out here didn’t mean she’d lose any more than she already had. Alex would still wake up in 2287. She’d still find a liar slowly suffocating beneath the weight of all his frauds, and she’d make him feel something again; something other than anger or fear or shame. She’d still die in a storm of laser fire, gasping for a breath that would never come.

But _Deacon_ would lose something. He’d lose everything.

Mitch shook himself free of his funk when the terminal behind him beeped loudly. He sighed again, rubbing at his eyes like he was ready to tear them out of his skull, and crossed the room to check it. He immediately went still; frozen like a synth at the sound of their recall code.

“Fuck,” he swore softly.

That must be Mitch’s early warning, then. Deacon sighed inwardly. He supposed it must be nice to have friends in Vault-Tec.

Mitch stayed at the terminal for a while longer, knuckles curling white about the edges of the frame. Deacon would have loved to ask him which idiot was going to fire first. After a moment, the shell-shocked scientist came back to his chair. He flipped it round to sit spread-legged, arms folded over the back of the chair, his vodka bottle wobbling slightly in his grip. He’d been well on his way to drunk even before he got this news. He took a swig – and it became clear he wasn’t satisfied with _drunk_. He was aiming for _wasted._

He looked Deacon in the eyes; really _looked_ at him, like he wasn’t a piece of the furniture after all. “That,” he said quietly, “was a message about the end of the world.”

_You don’t fucking say._

“Turns out it’s today. The end of the world is today.” Mitch took another gulp of vodka, making a face as he choked it down. “Who do you tell news like that to? Besides you, of course. You can’t call me crazy, so it’s all right.”

Even-tempered, professional Mitch had been fading fast recently, and right now he was completely vanished. Tonight, Mitch bore more than just a striking resemblance to the time-machine toting wastelander; he _was_ him, fully-realised and in the flesh – minus the outfit. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was an oily mess. His speech was slurred, but rapid. He reeked of alcohol.

“Other people would think I’m mad, John. And what if it’s a mistake? I’d never be listened to again. But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Not being listened to.” He tapped the underside of his bottle against the steel chair. “ _You’re_ a good listener. Not that you have much of a choice.” He took a long pull of vodka – straight - and stared at Deacon the way a deathclaw stares at a molerat. It wasn’t exactly contemptuous, and it wasn’t exactly calculating. It was unstable but passionless power; a robot with a screw loose sharpening its blade attachments. “Why’d you volunteer for this trial, John?”

If Deacon could have moved, he would have shivered. It had been so long since he’d been afraid of anything except _time_ ; endless, empty years. But there was a note in Mitch’s voice that sent chills down his useless spine.

“I know, I know. You can’t tell me. But I’ve got _theories_ , man. I’ve got a lot of ‘em.” Mitch gestured expansively with his liquor bottle, splattering Deacon’s blanket. He didn’t seem to notice. “You’re just a little too put-together to be a vagrant. Yeah, I know Hitchins had to find you an apartment, and a job, and all that. But it doesn’t add up. I thought you might be a plant. I thought maybe the dean had gotten wise. But I checked it out, and he still thinks we’re testing on mice. _Mice!_ ”

He giggled madly, sloshing his drink all over the place. “But I did still check you out. You didn’t exist until the doctor found you. Maybe you’re a commie spy, then?” He cocked his head to stare at Deacon like a boozy, boggle-eyed bird. He _should_ have looked ridiculous – but here in the bowels of a silent, empty building, on the eve of the end of the world...

He didn’t look ridiculous. More like terrifying.

“But my mom looks more like a commie than you do.” Mitch sighed like Deacon had let him down. “When your girl came in after your nerves all got fried, I started to think maybe it was about her. Maybe you’d...faked your death, or something, and your surgery fetish was all gonna end with some sort of weird rom-com scene in the operating theatre. But _she had a wedding ring on!_ ” He grinned, suddenly, and shook his finger like Carrington did when he was giving someone a scolding. “You sly motherfucker. Anyway, I’m losing my train of thought here. Point is, you were the toy boy, for sure. We don’t see a lot of toy boys in trials like this.”

He stood up and carelessly kicked his chair aside. It hit the wall with a _bang_ and collapsed all in a heap, but Deacon didn’t see it – Mitch was leaning over him, all up in Deacon’s face; crowding him in like a feral does to unwary wastelander.

“I’m gonna find out what your secret is, man. I am.”

He seized the rail of the gurney, slapped all of Deacon’s assorted attachments and medical paraphernalia atop his chest, and pushed him out the door. He breathed heavily in Deacon’s ear the whole while, like an undertaker carrying a coffin. Deacon’s heart was in his throat, hammering against his frozen larynx like it was trying to escape.

 _Where are you taking me?_ Deacon wanted to scream. _What the hell are you doing?_

Mitch wheeled him down darkened corridors and through cluttered, forgotten rooms; along passages with fluorescent lighting that flickered at the same frequency as Mitch’s quiet, eerie chuckling. They clattered down stairs, because the elevators were out of commission. He raced through automatic doors like the mushroom cloud was nipping at his heels. After the sixth or so flight of stairs, Deacon finally realised where they were going.

Underground.

Mitch didn’t slow down until he was wheezing, shaky fingers clutching at Deacon’s gurney rail more for support than for control. The architecture down here was different to that of the faded lustre above. Here, the walls were made of concrete; spartan and undecorated. The floors, and even the doors, were made of concrete too. As Mitch guided them – somewhat unsteadily – past an open door, a grey-haired man with a severe demeanour and slimline glasses stuck his head out into the hallway.

His frown faded. “Dr. Bell. You’ve heard?” It was Zimmer. Deacon recognised that raspy croak. Deacon couldn’t hear Mitch reply, but he must have nodded, or _something_ , because Zimmer made the sign of the cross. “I hope it’s all a mistake. But better to be safe.”

“Yeah.” Mitch mumbled.

Zimmer’s eyes flicked to Deacon. “You brought your patient with you?”

“I still want to go ahead with the procedure.”

Deacon’s ears pricked up immediately. _Procedure?_ Could be promising. Could be terrifying, too. Mitch’s chuckling was still echoing inside his skull.

Zimmer looked briefly concerned, but he eventually nodded. “Keep me updated.”

“This bunker is our insurance policy,” Mitch muttered as he wheeled Deacon onwards. It seemed the talk with Zimmer had calmed him down. Mad man Mitch was gone, and sad man Mitch had taken his place. “Jesus. It can’t really be happening, can it?”

Deacon would have loved to reply. He hoped his perfect deadpan stare at the opposite wall conveyed that.

Mitch finally ended their journey in a featureless concrete box. It was windowless and cold, but there were rows upon rows of cabinets stacked upon each other along three of its four walls. Mitch opened one immediately and began rummaging around. He emerged with a series of unidentifiable metal tools and a vial of his favourite local anaesthetic. Deacon had come to know that particular label rather well. Mitch added his loot to the pile of medical miscellany atop Deacon’s blankets before wheeling him back down the hallway and into another room. This one’s purpose was obvious: surgery.

Again.

If Deacon could, he would have hit something.

“I’m going to roll you over onto your side,” Mitch said once he’d arranged his equipment on a trolley. He sounded almost normal again. He was true to his word, and Deacon grumbled inwardly as he was rolled over. There was a brief, icy prickle at the back of Deacon’s neck, but it was quickly swamped by familiar numbness. He could hear Mitch getting busy with his tools, but he tried to tune it out. It was only more of the same, after all.

This place had to be the original bunker that saved those remnants of CIT; the ones that went on to form the Institute. Kind of ironic that the Institute would wind up saving Deacon’s life.

Such as it was, anyway. There wasn’t a whole lot left of him to be saved.

Mitch made a sound of irritation. “Come on...” he muttered. If Deacon really concentrated on his peripheral vision, he could just make out Mitch’s elbow twisting as he worked some nameless component of his cyborg spine. If he had the chance, Deacon knew exactly what he would have said.

“Careful, man, or you’ll put someone’s eye out.”

It was a long, jarring moment before it hit him. He _had_ spoken.

He didn’t sound like himself. His voice was croaky and rough. The cadence was all wrong. But he’d _spoken_.

“Holy _shit!_ ” The sudden hope was hot, potent, _electric_. He tried to move – but he couldn’t. The disappointment was _crushing_ , like his lungs had finally stopped their lingering one-two beat; like he should be gasping for that final, unattainable breath - the one that would never come.

“What the fuck is going on, Mitch?” His voice was shaking, now, but it was still there. God help him. It was still there. “What did you do?”

Mitch laughed; long and low and _insufferable_. “Oh man. I did it. I _fucking did it._ ”

Deacon was apparently able to hyperventilate, as well – or at least something very close to it. “Did _what?”_

Mitch rounded the table and leaned against the wall- just casually, hands folded in front of him. The fingertips of his latex gloves were stained with blood. Deacon shivered.

Holy shit. He could _shiver_ , too.

“I’ve worked out how to restore your motor function.” Mitch grinned.

Deacon went hot and cold all over. His blood had turned to pure adrenaline. He would have been shaking like a leaf, if he could. “Then why can’t I move?”

“Because I haven’t finished the procedure.”

“Why the hell _not_?” Christ – didn’t he understand how little time they had? What was it that he didn’t get?

Mitch shrugged. “It’d be such a waste of my bargaining chip.”

Deacon sighed. Jesus, he could _sigh_. He understood, now – all Mitch’s strange musing about his motivations; his history; his goals. Mitch hadn’t just been airing some idle grievances. He wanted answers. He wanted them seriously enough to withhold Deacon’s panacea; the only thing that might free him from his flesh and bone prison.

“The world’s about to end,” Deacon hissed. “Can’t you think of something better to do than extort a quadriplegic?”

“It might _not_ end,” Mitch growled. “It won’t.”

“Sorry, buddy, but you’re going to be disappointed.”

Mitch’s eyes glinted dangerously. “Well until we find out, you’re going to be a good distraction.” He picked up his scalpel and pointed vaguely at Deacon’s abdomen. “I’ll fix you, John. The facilitation hubs stopped any muscle atrophy, so you’ll be good as new! _If_ you tell me who you are. Where did you come from? Why did you sign up for our trial?”

“My name _is_ John. I was destitute. I needed a roof over my head.” It wasn’t a lie. Not really.

“Bullshit.”

“Why would I lie? Do you think I’ve been _enjoying_ this?”

“People that need a roof over their head go to a homeless shelter,” Mitch snapped. His face was stormy again, and he gripped the scalpel like a man about to slash the Hippocratic Oath to ribbons. “They go rob a convenience store. They don’t volunteer to have a doctor stick bits of metal in their chest.”

“How do you know? You ever been destitute, Mitch?”

“The _truth_ , or you can lie there on that table forever.”

Deacon shivered again. He’d had far too many nightmares about that. But he couldn’t tell Mitch the truth, because he’d never be believed – not if he screamed it at the top of his lungs until the world caved in around them. “Fine. You want the truth?”

“ _Yes_.”

“You already guessed it. I’m an infiltrator.”

Mitch glared at him for a moment, suspicious; considering; _infuriating._ “You don’t look like a Chinaman. You don’t sound like one, either.”

“I wouldn’t be much of an infiltrator if I did, would I?” Deacon was wearing his best foiled-again-by-this-meddling-doctor glower, but he was out of practice. His facial muscles were moving again, but every expression felt awkward and forced, like his skin was coated in a layer of slow-drying glue.

Mitch watched him for a moment longer, his bloodied fingers plucking absently at the hem of his lab coat. “What was your mission?”

Deacon grimaced in a way that he hoped said _forgive me, Chairman Cheng._ “Intel. I was to confirm the Americans’ progress towards developing cybernetically enhanced soldiers.” He almost bit off his own tongue trying to choke off that last part – but it was out before he could think of a better alternative. He hadn’t held a conversation with someone in... well. A very long time. His heart was beating so hard he could swear he could feel it pressing against the backs of his eyeballs.

It looked like Deacon might be out of luck, because Mitch’s eyebrows plunged into a sudden frown. “What about the woman?”

Deacon’s mouth went dry. “What woman?” he croaked – and he wished he hadn’t, because his adrenaline-addled brain was already helpfully supplying him with all the reminders he could ask for; each overlaid upon the other like negatives scattered across his retinas.

_Her coffee order was always a low fat latte. She used to sit on one of the coffins at the back of HQ and draw comics – and she tied me to her bedpost, once. She made me promise not to disappear again. She talked me into sitting out there with her in the middle of a goddamn hurricane. Her smile was like a thousand-watt spotlight on sheet ice - and the first time I told her I loved her, she didn’t believe me._

“Alex,” Mitch said. Deacon’s heart hammered out the syllables like a fucking prayer, but Mitch just rolled his eyes. “The married woman you were sleeping with. Seems like a bit of a risk to your mission, comrade.”

Deacon tried to keep his composure. He really did. “Don’t talk about her,” he growled.

“You’re not a spy,” Mitch snapped. He was all thunderclouds now. “I swear to god – I _will_ leave you here. I’ll undo my work before I go. You won’t even be able to call for help.” He wasn’t kidding. His brows were a hard line above darkened, stony eyes. His knuckles were white around the scalpel handle.

“What do you _want_ to hear, man?” Deacon’s voice cracked with anger. With despair, too. “What’s gonna satisfy you?”

“The truth!” Mitch hollered. “It’s not that _fucking_ hard!”

Hell – Deacon might as well try. “I’m a time traveller,” he grated. Hearing the words aloud made him wince. But he kept on. “From two hundred years in the future. The world _will_ end today. I’m from the place that comes after.”

Mitch opened his mouth to scream at him again, but Deacon talked right over the top of him.

“Vault-Tec put Alex into cryostasis when the bombs hit. I met her after she woke up. But she – she died. I came back to try to save her. But I need to live long enough to get back to the twenty third century.”

Mitch snarled like a rabid dog. “You just can’t _help_ yourself –“

“I can prove it!” Deacon shouted. He was finding it hard to breathe. He’d die before he let Mitch switch him off again. He _would._ Somehow. “What time is it?”

Mitch paused; bristled; _vibrated_ with manic rage – but he glanced at his watch. “Just past 9:30 AM.”

 _Shit._ Deacon had to close his eyes. “A nuke will hit New York at 9:42. Boston and Washington will both go down at 9:47.” He cracked one eyelid to look for Mitch’s reaction.

He’d actually paled. Maybe it was because of the resignation in Deacon’s voice. Maybe it was the despair etched into his face. Maybe it was just shock. Whatever the reason, Mitch checked his watch again. “You’re lying,” he whispered.

“I wish I was, man.”

Mitch cleared his throat; cast his eyes towards the ceiling; the floor; the bare and featureless wall, like he might be able to forget what he’d just heard if he could _just_ keep his eyes off Deacon. He failed. “I guess there’s one easy way to check.”

“There isn’t anyone else you want to warn?” Deacon was honestly surprised. Even if Mitch was a loner, and even if he didn’t have any family, Deacon would have figured he’d at least warn Danielle.

Mitch shook his head. “No. Zimmer will be making sure the important people are down here.”

“What about Dani?”

“She lives in Concord,” Mitch said quietly. His hands had begun to shake. He pressed them to his sides, ignoring the blood he smeared across his coat. “She wouldn’t be able to get here in time.”

Mitch already believed him – mostly, anyway. That much was obvious. Deacon should have felt triumphant, but he only felt cold; like he was with her on the threshold of that cryo-chamber, just waiting for the end of the world.

The minutes ticked by. Mitch couldn’t stand still. He sat on the end of Deacon’s gurney. He paced the perimeter of the room. He wrung his hands and checked his watch at thirty second intervals. Deacon watched in quiet, fragile silence, trying hard not to wonder what Alex was doing.

At precisely 9:42 AM, Zimmer’s voice rang out from down the hall. Footsteps echoed off the concrete as his colleagues rushed to meet him. Mitch just looked at Deacon with eyes like burned out stars.

“Oh god,” he whispered. “Who wins, John?”

“Nobody.”

Wordlessly, Mitch moved back to his position at Deacon’s back. He prodded the back of Deacon’s neck carefully. “Can you feel that?”

“Yes.”

There came another cold prickle that made the hairs on Deacon’s neck stand up, then comfortable numbness set in. “Don’t try to move until I tell you.”

“You probably shouldn’t be holding a scalpel when we get hit by an A-bomb, man.” Deacon’s voice cracked over the words.

“I’ll be fine.”

In the end, they barely even felt the blast. The earth above them rumbled dangerously. Some dust fell from the ceiling. Some scientists down the hall shrieked in grief and terror, but Mitch’s hands remained steady. His breath was trembling on Deacon’s ear, though, and he whispered something that sounded like a prayer.

The world was dying. But Alex was _safe_ , sealed away in her Vault – and Deacon was starting to wonder if his own prayers hadn’t just been answered.


	19. Nineteen

Nobody took the end of the world well.

Zimmer and his jittery fellows wandered around in a daze in the weeks that followed doomsday. They tried to lose themselves in mundane, repetitive tasks, like confirming supply inventories and consolidating salvaged data. Zimmer himself seemed to think that micromanaging each and every one of his subordinates’ tasks would somehow be their salvation.

And they _were_ subordinates, even though Zimmer described their meagre conclave as an assemblage of peers. Zimmer was the one they looked to when the battered earth shifted above them. Zimmer was the one who urged courage when they were ready to give in to despair. Zimmer was the one that picked them up off the floor when minor inconveniences reduced them to tears.

Mitch didn’t cry at all – not once – but he was a changed man. He rarely spoke, except to answer direct questions, and his eyes darted around at odd moments, like he was watching for something no one else could see. It reminded Deacon vaguely of Tinker Tom, and it didn’t surprise him at all. Deacon knew where Mitch was going to end up, even if he didn’t know how he was going to get there. There was a niggling voice in the back of Deacon’s mind that said _hey, maybe I should try to do something about that_. If he could keep Mitch from building that time machine – maybe by stalling the descent into madness that was obviously impending - it’d be the same thing as keeping Charmer out of that warehouse she died in. But did Deacon really want to _stop_ the machine being built? Time machines could take someone forward as easily as they could take someone backwards – presumably, anyway.

Thinking about it made Deacon’s head spin.

But things were looking up. Hell, it was like all his Christmases had come at once. Mitch had fixed him. He could walk and run and jump and _scream_ with joy – and if the scientists all looked at him like he was some sort of refurbished toaster, it was a very small price to pay.

Despite the odd looks, the scientists had more or less accepted him. Some of them grumbled about having to feed him, but Zimmer maintained that Deacon’s implants represented another line of enquiry on the path to saving humanity. He assigned Mitch the secondary priority of investigating modifications that might help Deacon to resist radiation – a cause that Deacon could embrace with enthusiasm, so long as it didn’t involve cutting him open again.

There were other options, he supposed. The trouble was that there was no perfect plan; no way to tie everything up neatly and follow the steps from point A to point thank-fuck-that’s-over.

He could stick to the original plan; try to live long enough so that he could meet Charmer in the middle. But the tech clinging to his skeleton was useless without additional work. Hitchins had made it clear that the implants he already had would only buy him another half a century at the most – not nearly as much time as he needed. But Deacon wasn’t in a hurry to go under the knife again anytime soon.

Maybe he should just try to save Alex _now._

Once the thought occurred to him, he couldn’t get it out of his head.  He was _itching_ to get out there – or, more specifically, to get to Vault 111.

Radiation was the first problem. It would be decades before the gamma emissions dropped to a level a garden variety human could endure. Looters, raiders and other desperate men were another. Any intact streets were sure to be slaughterhouses - and on top of all that, it would be years before Vault 111’s staff revolted. The new world was being birthed in complete and total chaos, and even though Deacon wanted nothing more than to drop everything and charge across the wasteland like hell was on his heels; like salvation was dangling just beyond the reach of his grasping fingertips – he couldn’t.

Yet. But waiting years was better than waiting centuries. And if waking up Alex meant that he’d be waking Nate up too, well...

Maybe Alex still loved her husband. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she still loved them both, or maybe only her baby boy. It didn’t matter. She was out there, and she needed him.

Maybe he should be worried about causality and equal-and-opposite reactions; about pulling Alex out of her cryopod, Sleeping Beauty style, only to wink out of existence as the laws of time and space reasserted themselves. But _hell_ , Deacon was in the Railroad. He knew all about crazy risks, and he knew all about self-sacrifice.

The difference? This time it would be for someone that he loved.

Deacon spent a lot of his time hanging around in Mitch’s lab – such as it was. The tiny concrete box contained only a fraction of the equipment Mitch had had access to under Hitchins’ banner, and that fact probably should have frustrated him. But Mitch gave no sign he even particularly cared. Needless to say, he wasn’t a hugely engaging conversation partner these days. But Mitch was the only person alive that knew where Deacon really came from. He’d chosen not to tell his peers – probably because they’d never believe him.

There was a link between Mitch and Deacon now, and there was no getting rid of it. Maybe it was that bond that made Deacon’s tongue so loose, or maybe it was just lingering, giddy joy. Maybe it was just the aversion to silence he’d developed after interminable months of it.

Or maybe it was because Deacon knew that, somehow and some-when, Mitch was going to have access to a time machine. Regardless, Deacon found himself talking just because he could. Because nobody else was.

“What are you doing there, buddy?” Deacon was sitting on the floor, because chairs were in shockingly short supply. Mitch was hunched over his desk, perusing some rather dense and impenetrable text on the screen of his terminal.

“Processing load calculations,” Mitch sighed.

“Sounds complicated. Let me know if you come across anything involving steam cleaners or Wakemaster alarm clocks. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’m a bit of an expert on those.”

“Uh huh.” Mitch didn’t even give him an eye roll.

Deacon suppressed a grumble. “Do you – sorry. _Did_ you have any family, Mitch?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“Obviously.”

“Then I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Thanks.”

Mitch spent long shifts alone in the lab or squirreled away in some dim and dusty backroom, isolated from his peers both by concrete walls and impenetrable silence. Deacon made it his personal mission to chase him out of every corner he found, and it quickly turned into a full-time job. Mitch just seemed to keep finding new places to hide, and he kept finding new weird and wonderful metal trinkets to take with him. Deacon had a sneaking suspicion he knew what those trinkets were for.

But they still hadn’t _really_ discussed the bomb Deacon had dropped – you know, on the day the _real_ bombs were dropped – and he was more than a little hesitant to bring it up. Luckily for Deacon, Mitch ended up doing it for him – in an indirect sort of way.

Mitch was sitting in his lab, digging around in a tangled mess of copper wires and scavenged circuitry. Deacon was there with him, rattling off his usual talking points and trying not to jump at the occasional unexpected spark. _How about that mac and cheese they served for lunch, man? Heard anything from Zimmer about making a run upstairs yet? Aren’t you glad you restored my power of speech?_

Deacon was starting to get tired of the sound of his own voice – something he’d _never_ expected to actually happen – when Mitch finally decided to contribute to the conversation. “Can I ask you something, John?”

“Oh, Christ. _Please_ do.”

“What’s was it like? Knowing the world was going to end, and doing nothing about it?”

Oof. “That makes it sound like I did it on purpose. You might not remember this, but I was indisposed at the time.”

Mitch stopped fiddling with the wires and rested his chin on his hand. “Sure. But I mean before that. You were kicking around the university for ages before your accident. Why didn’t you warn someone? We could have made preparations. We could have tried to stop it.”

He had a point; enough of a point to start hot shame bubbling in Deacon’s belly, but he was still wrong. Deacon would have liked to lie, but there was something about this particular truth that really needed to be told – even if it was more than a little depressing.

_Because even if the Big One didn’t happen on October 23, it would have just happened some other time. The human race would’ve kept at it until they arranged another date to kill each other._

It was probably the truest truth Deacon knew. He’d lived that truth, really –every day of his life. The Railroad was the sticky tape he used to bundle all the pieces of his worldview back together, even as another atrocity loomed on the horizon. It was tricky, that; trying to deny the truest truth with the grandest lie – and after seeing all that Deacon had seen, no one could be naive enough to believe in _actual_ goodness. The real stuff, that is; the kind that didn’t look for fame or glory or caps in return.

Charmer did, though. She believed so strongly it was painful. And when Deacon was with her – well.

He sometimes thought he believed in it, too.

So he cleared his throat. “I thought about it, man. But there are rules about that sort of thing.”

Mitch raised an eyebrow. “There are rules about saving the world?”

“No. That would just be ridiculous. There are rules about interfering with timelines. You want me to go to prison or something?”

Mitch gave him that tired, long-suffering look that everyone gave Deacon at some point or another; the look that said _I can’t even be bothered to argue with you right now._

“So how is trying to turn yourself into a robot not interfering with timelines?”

Deacon scoffed. “You’re a scientist, man. Please don’t confuse robots with cyborgs – that’s just insulting my intelligence.”

“Whatever. Can you answer the question?”

“Sure.” Deacon leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles, glancing upwards and slightly to the left. He knew that whole deal about eye movements giving away lies was bullshit, but most people didn’t. “See, I didn’t originally exist in this century, so if I change things about _myself_ it doesn’t interfere with anything.”

“But what about me?” Mitch’s eyes fell back to the desk, and it was a pained half-beat before he continued speaking. “And Danielle. And Hitchins. Didn’t you alter our futures just by being involved with us?”

Deacon’s stomach fell right down into his boots. Shit. He’d thought about all of this, of course, but it’s easy to brush a _thought_ aside; to hide it in a cold, dark corner of your mind until you build up enough courage to deal with it. _Speak_ that thought, though; give it life, and it suddenly becomes a lot harder to ignore.

Mitch wasn’t finished. “And you’re trying to go back, right? What happens when you meet up with your totally human past-but-also-future self?”

It was a good fucking question, but Deacon just smiled condescendingly. “We’d be here all day if I tried to explain. It’s a lot to wrap your head around, I know. But hey – trust me. I’ll be fine.”

Now if only the sick feeling in the pit of Deacon’s stomach would listen to that particular bit of advice.

Mitch raised another eyebrow and gave him another look. _I can’t even be bothered to argue with you right now._ “She must have been pretty special.”

“She _is_ special. She’s not dead.”

“Yet,” Mitch added helpfully.

“Thanks for all your encouragement, man.”

“So you were in love with her?” Mitch had folded his hands under his chin like a kid sitting beside a campfire, ready and waiting to hear a goddamn bedside story.

Deacon sighed. “I guess so.”

Mitch laughed. He _actually_ laughed. “Jesus. You _guess so_?”

“Okay. Yes. I was. I _am_.”

“Better. So, how’d you meet her?”

Deacon sent Mitch a sidelong look. Ordinarily, all these questions would have made him nervous. They would have had him looking for the coursers that were sure to be hiding in a dark alleyway somewhere. But Mitch couldn’t be an Institute plant, because the Institute didn’t even exist yet. Not really.

So what was the harm? “We were part of a secret organization,” Deacon explained. “We saved people, rescued kittens from trees - that sort of thing.”

“You worked together?”

“I recruited her. She was the best field agent we’d seen in years.”

“Sounds very cloak-and-dagger. Field agent, huh?”

“No actual daggers. No cloaks either – hey, do superhero capes count?”

Mitch blinked, bemused. “Um. I guess they do. So, how’d it happen? I bet it was dramatic. Did she save your life out on the job?”

Charmer _did_ save his life, but it wasn’t anything so simple as stopping a bullet or stabbing him with a well-placed stimpak. It was a long-term project – hell, _Deacon_ was a long-term project. It was late nights and empty liquor bottles; freezing showers and sloppy kisses. It was patience and determination – and forgiveness that Deacon never deserved.

Deacon shook his head. “You’ve been reading too many comic books, man.”

\---

The months dragged on. Mitch continued to work on radiation resistance tech, but he wasn’t getting far – and Deacon was getting _antsy_. The options that had seemed so numerous after the bombs fell had dwindled to three very meagre paths.

Option one: beg Mitch for some more surgery; some shiny new implants to stretch his life expectancy as far as it would go. No thanks.

Option two: head up to the surface and hope the radiation, the populace or Vault-Tec security didn’t kill him before he managed to free Alex and her family. Not a _hugely_ appealing prospect.

Option three: sit on his hands and hope Mitch could build him a time machine.

Maybe Deacon was finally losing it, but he was leaning towards option three. So he gave up ferreting Mitch out of his hidey holes, and he gave up asking about the metal miscellany that Mitch often dragged off into the darkness. If the man wanted to slowly lose what were left of his marbles and cobble together a prototype in his off hours, could Deacon really be expected to object?

So Deacon resigned himself to wait. Watching Mitch’s mind slowly crack apart was fascinating – but mostly it was just scary. The man talked to himself a lot, chattering nonsense about cats in cardboard boxes and trains travelling at the speed of light. He asked Deacon a lot of questions, too; suddenly and seemingly randomly, without any prelude or preamble.

“What’s the average ambient air temperature in your time, John?”

“Depends. Summer or winter?”

“Summer.”

 

“Has the Earth’s magnetic field reversed its poles yet?”

“What?”

 

“John, I need you to tell me something. Do you think everything you’ve been through has been worth it?”

“I don’t know yet, pal.”

 

Mitch continued like this for what felt like forever, growing more and more withdrawn as the months dragged by. He started to neglect his radiation research. He abandoned his attempts at implant development completely. It got to the point where even Deacon couldn’t find his newest hidey hole. He overheard Zimmer and the other scientists discussing Mitch’s instability at several of their “staff meetings” – and it didn’t sound good. Deacon wondered what they’d actually do if Mitch did something dangerous. Lock him up, maybe, and take his care upon themselves; throw him out to fend for himself amongst the rads and the raiders; or maybe make him a new guinea pig.

It was only when he felt like he was on the verge of finding out that Deacon finally decided to intervene.

He cornered Mitch as he was dragging a chunky metal beam down one of the corridors adjacent to his lab. He was obviously trying to be quiet, but the _scrape_ , _crash_ , _bang_ gave him away. Deacon followed at a distance, at first, trying to work out whether Mitch actually believed he was being stealthy. He sure seemed like he did – and maybe that was the most worrying part.

Deacon kept back until the cacophony stopped and he could finally make out the sound of Mitch talking to himself. He was ranting about cats again. Deacon had to take a deep breath before he showed himself. He was more than a little frightened – not of _Mitch_ , of course; not now that he had control of all four limbs again. It was causality, or at least the spectre of it, that made the hairs on the back of Deacon’s neck stand on end.

_Didn’t you alter our futures just by being involved with us?_

But if he was going to let fear stop him, he might as well just give up now.

“What’s going on, buddy?” Deacon kept his tone breezy, but Mitch’s head snapped up like a radstag startled from its dinner. He was hunched over a tangle of metal beams and wire, his hands wrapped round with shredded insulation and his eyes wide like a ghoul on the edge of turning feral. Deacon’s heart did something weird as he took at all in; it tried to jump and sink all at the same time, but just wound up doing a sort of painful sideways zigzag. The last time he’d seen a contraption like that... It hadn’t gone well.

“John!” Mitch grinned like Deacon was just the person he’d been waiting for. “Look. At. This.”

Deacon didn’t need to be told. “What is it?” As if he’d ever forget.

“It’s a fucking _time machine_ , man.”

It took a superhuman effort not to let his turmoil show on his face. They’d had this conversation before – or one just like it. It had been a different time and a different place. Deacon’s heart had been lighter. His life expectancy had been shorter. But Deacon’s enhancements weren’t doing him any good right now. He couldn’t breathe.

“Holy shit,” he croaked.

Mitch’s face lit up like he’d never heard such praise. “It’s going to work, John – I know it will. I’m going to go into the future. I’m going to save the world.”

 _I’m going to go into the future._ Fuck, it was exactly what Deacon wanted to hear; almost word-for-word perfect. But he couldn’t help himself.

“You want to go _forward_? How can you stop the bombs from there?”

Mitch extricated himself from most of the wiring and clapped a hand to his forehead in disgust. “I can’t go back _yet_. I need time to make a plan.”

“And going forward in time is somehow going to help with that? Makes total sense, man. _Total_ sense.”

Mitch beamed. “See? You _get it._ I knew you would.”

“You should definitely explain it to me anyway. Just so you can get your mad scientist exposition out of the way. It’d be a tragedy to miss out on that.”

“You’re right.” He was _entirely fucking serious_ , and that was more off-putting than the wild eyes; more mind boggling than the time machine. “I need to get out of here, man. Can’t save the world unless I can see the sun again. Can’t see the sun from here – the dust clouds block it out.”

“You need to see the sun again?” And there was that painful zigzag again, dragging Deacon’s heart around like bloodied meat over a rusty grill. The bunker Charmer died in – the bunker _Mitch_ died in - was dark. _Very_ dark.

“Yeah. And then I can think of a way to save the world.” Mitch was totally calm; earnest; _convinced_. Deacon knew he was crazy, but he still envied him.

Just a little.

But Mitch didn’t even notice. “I want you to come with me, John.”

“I’m here to save Alex.” Deacon’s voice sounded awfully strangled. “I can’t go forward too far...”

“That’s okay, man. I don’t have a fixed target date. I’m _flexible._ But I need a partner, you know? Someone to help me survive in the future. I’ll work around you.”

“You mean I can pick the date?”

“Exactly!”

Jesus. Deacon had thought about it, of course, during the dark and lonely hours after midnight; when his limbs were cold and heavy and his mind became an echo chamber. If he could pick the _perfect_ time to go back to – no, to go forward to - when would it be?

Deacon’s head was spinning again.

Last time Deacon been through a machine like this, he’d wound up miles from where he’d started. He’d give himself time to allow for that. But he’d drop out of the wormhole, or whatever Mitch wanted to call it, and he’d be there to pull Alex and her family out of their frozen prisons. He’d arrive early enough to beat Kellogg to the post, but late enough to land in a wasteland he was comfortable in. He’d be early enough to avoid running into his future self as well, which could only be considered a bonus. Or was it his past self? His _other_ self, anyway.

One thing was for certain – he wouldn’t be stuck waiting around any longer. Causality could go fuck itself, because Deacon could finally _do_ something. His heart rate was up, his limbs were loose and his fight-or-flight response was raring to go.

So he didn’t need to think about it.

He was going to save her.

Deacon took another deep breath. “We’re going to 2225.”

“You sure?”

“Very.” Deacon’s mouth was dry.

“All right!” Mitch crowed. He seized Deacon’s arm and dragged him over to the machine; curled Deacon’s fingers around the metal frame as he punched some numbers into a keypad near the apex of the structure.

“Are you going to electrocute me?” Deacon asked nervously. It was a very real concern.

“No no no. You’ll be fine. I think.” Mitch grabbed hold of the frame as well and shot Deacon a jittery grin. “Oh, hang on. Have you got a Geiger counter?”

“Mine’s in the shop.”

“Wait.” Mitch twisted around and snatched a tiny box from amongst the scattered junk on the floor. “Got one.” Tiny beads of sweat were clinging to Mitch’s forehead. He hadn’t even bothered to bring a backpack; the Geiger counter represented the entirety of his supplies. Deacon knew he should change that, but the metal frame was cold under his hand; his body was vibrating in time with the electrons about to flow through it, and he couldn’t have torn himself away if he tried. “You ready?”

Yes? No. _Yes._

He’d been ready for a long time.

“Do it.”

Mitch flipped a switch. The generator started to rumble. Sparks flared at the base of the machine, but Mitch didn’t seem worried. He whooped and hollered and crowed, dancing back and forth on his tiptoes as his wobbly bundle of metal and wire started to break apart time and space.

Deacon had just enough time to think of a new reason to worry. “Hey - how accurate is this thing?”

As it turned out: not very.


	20. Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys I planned to upload the rest of this fic all at once but then life happened and it was super hectic and...
> 
> Anyway, the rest of it is coming soon. Promise.

At first, everything seemed more or less okay.

Deacon opened his eyes in a dusty alleyway. The sky was pale blue and flecked with dirty white streamers. His head was throbbing dully. His eyes stung like he’d hit the bottle too hard the night before.

His heart was banging around in his chest like it was actually jumping for joy.

Deacon turned his head – with some difficulty. Mitch was lying crumpled beside him, mouth slightly open. He was breathing, though. Jesus. Time travel could really take it out of you.

Deacon hoisted himself to his feet. If someone had been there to ask, he would have told them he could _swear_ he was looking at Vault 111; like he was a goddamn compass needle trained on the only thing that mattered. He nudged Mitch with his boot until he stirred, groaning – then suddenly startled awake, his eyes going wide and his nostrils flaring like Tinker Tom at the height of his favourite rant.

“Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!” Mitch gasped, scrambling to his feet. “Is this it? Holy shit!”

“Shh!” Deacon hissed. Jesus, it had been years – but his old instincts were kicking in again. This wasn’t like waking up in Boston central with a handsome man in a suit to oversee his leisurely awakening. The wasteland was _dangerous_ , and if Mitch managed to attract a deathclaw Deacon was going to be seriously pissed off.

Deacon crept down to the end of the alley and peered around the corner. He’d been away too long to have the instant recognition of place he’d prided himself on back in the day – but he’d know this particular place anywhere and anytime. They were on the edge of College Square in Cambridge, maybe a block away from the police station. God knew he’d been dragged to that place more times than he would have liked. Unlike the last time he was here, it looked like there weren’t many feral ghouls partying down. He could hear people moving around in the direction of the police station, though; raiders, if the jet jokes and guttural laughter were anything to go on.

He turned his head and held a finger to his lips. “Stay here,” he murmured. Mitch nodded, his eyes still wide as a frightened radrabbit’s.

Deacon tiptoed around the edge of the square as quietly he could; as quietly as it’s possible to do when you’ve only recently regained the ability to walk. He could see a feral dozing about twenty feet away. Its eyes were gazing sightlessly skyward, sure, but he hadn’t forgotten those tell-tale signs: the mouth that wasn’t quite motionless; the slight whistle of air in and out of its decaying nostrils; the sprawl that was just a little too relaxed to be actual death. But it didn’t stir as Deacon crept by – and lucky for Deacon, he didn’t have to go far.

He found a dead raider just past the threshold of one of the nearby buildings, collapsed over a bloodied backpack with a bullet in his head. Whoever shot him must have overlooked the loot. Deacon certainly wasn’t complaining, because he found a ten millimetre in there – and _shit_ , some spare ammo, too! He found a packet of stale fancy lads jammed into the back pocket with a few stimpaks. It wasn’t a huge haul by Deacon’s recent standards – but in the wasteland, this was _Christmas._

It was good to be home, even though there was a feral outside; even though he had to wipe the blood off his new gun before he felt comfortable sticking it in his belt. Deacon knew what he was doing here. He understood this world _far_ better than the one he’d left.

He found Mitch waiting for him back in the alleyway, shaking like a leaf. Mitch pointed at the ghoul, his hand wildly unsteady, and mouthed _what’s that?_

“I’ll explain later,” Deacon whispered. “We need to get out of here without being seen or heard. Do exactly what I do, and don’t talk until I tell you. Got it?”

Mitch gulped. His breathing was irregular, but he nodded.

Fortunately, Mitch turned out to be pretty good at moving quietly when he put his mind to it. Deacon led them on a roundabout path to the edge of town. He directed them more or less towards Greygarden, which should be _mostly_ safe. The raiders in the police station were making far too much noise to notice two people skulking past at waist height, but Deacon’s nerves were taut as violin strings anyway. They were only a few blocks into their sneaky, slow-paced trip when he pulled out his gun – not because he had a particular reason to, but because the weight in his hand was comforting.

It had been a long time since Deacon had walked the wasteland, but it had been even longer since he’d walked it without Charmer.

He guided Mitch up onto the railway tracks just south of Greygarden and took a hairpin turn north. It looked to be early afternoon, judging by the position of the sun. The glare was off-putting, and Deacon missed his sunglasses terribly. There’d be time for that later. _Later_. The thought made his fingertips tingle. What would he do when this was over? Assuming things went his way, that is, and Alex didn’t decide she’d rather just stay with her husband, thank-you-very-much.

_Later._

Mitch was breathing hard; harder than a brisk walk could account for.

“You okay, man?”

Mitch’s head snapped up. He was pale as a ghost. “Yes. Yes.”

“Not having a heart attack on me, are you? I failed my last CPR course. What was it again? Doctors… something-or-other?”

Mitch just stared at him blankly; turned to look out over the barren terrain, his mouth working silently like he was tracing the flattened skyline with his lips. “I didn’t think it would be like this.”

Deacon suppressed a sigh, but he _had_ to raise an eyebrow. “What’d you expect? Normally we would have shown you some _real_ wasteland hospitality, but we had to stop our “welcome to the end of the world” parties. _Such_ a shame, but we ran out of the little umbrellas – you know, the ones you put in fruity drinks.”

Mitch didn’t even seem to hear him. “What’s that?” he asked.

“What’s wha-“

“I’LL WEAR YOUR GUTS AROUND MY NECK!”

 _Fuck._ There was a trio of supermutants emerging from beneath the railway bridge. They were armed with boards and crowbars, but no guns – and thank god for that. Deacon was good, but he wasn’t _that_ good.

“Run!”

They hightailed it. Deacon quite literally hadn’t run this fast in years, and his lungs were burning before they even made it to the top of the hill. Mitch wasn’t doing much better; the man had worked a desk job all his life, and he didn’t have the benefit of an artificially enhanced lung capacity. Deacon hung a left at Greygarden, because it wouldn’t be much fun to get splattered by the Handies’ defences before the supermutants even reached him. He pounded across the hillside towards ArcJet. If he could get a bit of distance between him and the mutants, he might be able to fire off a few rounds. Deacon could hear heavy footsteps behind him; roaring mutant laughter that made his heart pump pure, molten adrenaline. He chanced a look over his shoulder –

One of the mutants had caught Mitch; pinned him to a tree trunk with a thick green hand choking off his airway. Mitch’s feet kicked weakly in mid-air. The mutant just kept laughing.

Deacon had told a lot of lies in which ‘time just seemed to slow down’; when a moment stretched out into infinity and the entire world balanced on its tiptoes, waiting for the outcome of one overwhelming decision. Deacon would tell a _shitload_ of lies about this particular moment - because he couldn’t tell the truth. He couldn’t tell anyone how he hesitated; how he held back with his ten millimetre pointed straight at the mutant’s skull. He couldn’t tell anyone about the slimy, selfish thought that tiptoed across his grey matter and rammed a fucking neon sign up against his ocular nerve.

_Maybe I should just let him die._

Mitch was a man out of time. He’d be dead already, if Deacon hadn’t been around to introduce him to the reality of time travel. And if Mitch died now…he wouldn’t be around to lure Charmer to her death.

Hell – maybe if Mitch died now, causality might end up as Deacon’s _ally_. Maybe if Mitch died here, Deacon would just wink out of existence – and reappear at Charmer’s side.

It was a very, very long moment.

But Deacon wasn’t that kind of man anymore.

He shot the mutant in the head. The bullet didn’t kill it, of course; the greenskin just clapped a hand against its ear and roared in anger - but it did let go of Mitch. He hit the ground with a muffled thud, and Deacon was there to haul him to his feet and hustle him off towards ArcJet.

“Run _faster_!”

They turned directly north at ArcJet, and the sound of mutant footsteps eventually fell away. Deacon’s heart was pounding so loudly he had to wonder if it was just masking the sound of the pursuit, but when no mutants turned up after ten minutes; twenty; thirty, he slowly started to relax.

Mitch was another story entirely. He was shaking like a leaf in a _hurricane_ , now, hugging himself with pale, jittery hands and fingers that grasped at nothing. He was breathing deep, but way too fast. He looked like he might pitch forward onto his face at any second. Deacon called a halt near Walden Pond just so he could take a look at him.

Mitch gasped out a question before Deacon could think of anything clever to say. “What were those _things?_ ”

“Oh, those? They’re called supermutants. They’re not big fans of anything that isn’t green.”

Deacon hadn’t thought it would be possible, but Mitch’s eyes seemed to get even wider; bulged like they were trying to pop out of his head and hightail it back to 2077. “ _Mutants?_ ”

He immediately reached for his Geiger counter and thumbed the switch like he was pressing a detonator. The resulting _click click click click_ _click_ was just par for the course when you were standing next to a still pond like Walden, but not for Mitch – he shrieked and flung the counter away like it was a hulking great spider. It clattered on a rock by the water’s edge before hitting the surface with a plop. At least the clicking stopped.

“I can’t do this,” Mitch wheezed, tugging at his own shirt like he wanted to rip himself free. “I can’t do this.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Deacon snapped. Maybe he should have been more understanding, but Deacon didn’t have _time_ to be anybody’s buddy. He had somebody to save. “I’ll drop you off at someplace a little more hospitable and you can wait for me to come back and get you.”

“ _No!_ ” Mitch screamed. He rounded on Deacon like a junkie searching for his stolen hit. “I can’t _do_ this!”

“All right!” Deacon held up his hands in surrender, but Mitch didn’t even see it – he took off, scrambling through the brush, sobbing and shrieking by turns, and Deacon could only watch him go. There was no _maybe_ about it, this time. He wasn’t particularly worried. He knew where Mitch was going to end up. If Mitch was going to die, he’d have to make it to the right decade first.

Besides - Deacon had someone to save.

So he continued north. He hit the Red Rocket in the late afternoon, but skirted the perimeter just in case someone in the twenties was clever enough to occupy it. There was a defunct Protectron lying upside down on the road to Sanctuary, its weapons and internal circuitry all picked clean by scavvers. Deacon forgot about Codsworth and his unerring vigil until the last moment; he had to dive into a hedgerow as the Handy approached. Deacon wasn’t sure if causality would kick his ass for talking to a robot, but causality wasn’t the big issue here. He just couldn’t handle Codsworth right now. The robot was _actually_ whistling _._ Not for the first time, Deacon wondered what kind of smug bastard would program a robot to whistle.

The thrumming of his heart turned irregular as he climbed the hill to Vault 111. The higher he climbed, the higher _it_ climbed, scaling his ribs like a stepladder until it was clawing at his throat with impatient, grasping fingers. Shit. He couldn’t quite believe this was happening. Deacon almost could have _blushed_ at the cliché –

But all of this felt like a dream.

The vault was standing open, just as he’d predicted. The rebelling staff would have cut and run, vault integrity be damned. Deacon had never actually been inside 111 – Charmer hated the place too much to ever bring him here – and he wasn’t prepared for it. He’d been to 81, of course, but _shit_. Deacon supposed he should have expected it, but 111 was like a tomb. Whoever designed the elevator must have been a massive fan of sci fi horror films, because Deacon was _feeling it._

He couldn’t help but shiver as he crossed the rattling catwalk. He could swear he saw ice shards glittering on the rail.

The Overseer’s office was open, too, and the rest of the interior doors. But it was when he found the doors to the cryo room open that Deacon started to get worried. His heartbeat faltered; compensated; shuddered. It took every ounce of courage he had to approach the first cryo pod.

There was a woman inside; Mrs Callahan, the nearby terminal dubbed her. All Deacon got was a flash of short dark hair, because it honestly seemed like he whited out with horror the moment he looked inside. She was dead; quite obviously so. Her body had curled in on itself like a withering flower as she slowly and painfully asphyxiated.

She was dead.

_Shit._

He rushed to the next pod, hoping it might have been a one-off malfunction. Nope. Mr Callahan was dead too – and the person in the next pod, and the next, and the next. Deacon couldn’t form a coherent thought as he sprinted to the end of the corridor.

Except one. What if causality _had_ kicked his ass?

He crashed against Alex’s cryo chamber like a shipwreck coming up against the shore, ready for everything he was to come apart at the seams – but she was alive. She was _alive_. The little light on the chamber door was green, and she was healthy and whole and clear-skinned.

Deacon turned around slowly, but he already knew what he was going to find.

Nate was in the pod opposite Alex, sealed up behind flash-frozen glass. He looked strange in a vault suit; like someone had crammed him into a Halloween costume before they froze him. His head was slumped sideways. With his hair falling at that angle, the tiny red dot on his forehead was almost invisible. Shaun was gone, but Nate’s arms were still bent at the elbows; still cradling his baby son as though he’d never had time to realize he was gone.

Deacon slumped backwards. His head hit Alex’s pod with a _thunk_. Something had gone wrong. He’d had the chance to un-ruin Alex’s life, and he had _completely_ fucked it up.

_I feel sorry for you, John. It must hurt to have come so close._

He slid to the floor slowly and held his head in his hands. He didn’t quite manage to cry, but _shit_. He wanted to. He stared up at Nate’s corpse; his still-perfect hair, his lightly frosted skin and the tiny red dot on his forehead. Deacon could open the pod and that blood would still run – but Deacon couldn’t have opened it if he wanted to. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he’d ever manage to move from this spot.

Hell – what could he do now? He could still wake Alex up, but she’d drift back to consciousness with her husband’s murder fresh in her mind. She’d find her supposedly paralysed lover waiting for her, his face exactly as it had been two centuries ago; the dot on Nate’s forehead starkly visible over his shoulder. What could he say? _Don’t worry about me, sugar. I’m totally fine. Sorry about your husband, though. My timing’s awfully convenient? What do you mean?_

Deacon could think of a few things more likely to fuck up the future than that. But only a few. His best efforts had already gotten Nate killed and his son kidnapped. _Nate’s_ son. He _had_ to be Nate’s son.

What if his best efforts got Alex killed next?

Deacon wasn’t sure how he finally dragged himself to his feet, but it happened. He turned to look at Alex through the cryo pod glass. He wished he could smoothe away the pain etched on her brow; kiss it away, maybe, and tell her again how much he loved her. He pressed his palm against the glass and ghosted gentle fingers across the outline of her cheek. This was as close as he was going to get. Any closer, and Deacon might fuck it up.

He’d already made up his mind. He just hadn’t admitted it yet.

He was going to take the long way round.

He left a handprint on the glass when he finally mustered the strength to leave. He rubbed it away with his sleeve, even though it hurt; even though his heart was thumping weakly against his ribs like it was trying to send a message in Morse code. YOU ARE AN IDIOT STOP.

She couldn’t know that he was here.

Deacon found a Pip-Boy on the way out, still secured to a skeletal wrist. It was Charmer’s Pip-Boy. It had to be. He was hesitant to boot it up, because he could still feel causality peering over his shoulder, waiting; but he _had_ to know just how far off the mark he was. He tried his damnedest not to disturb any of the dust on the screen as the device ran through its start up routine; tried his hardest not to hold his breath.

“Holy...” He couldn’t quite believe it. January 8, 2265. Maybe the gadget was buggy. How could Mitch’s machine have been _forty years_ late?

Deacon sighed. He’d never even had a chance of making it here on time. Shaun would be middle-aged by now - and well and truly brainwashed. Deacon could picture him now, complete with a ginger beard and slimline eyeglasses, happily justifying slavery. He powered down the Pip-Boy and wound it carefully back around the skeleton’s wrist. The click of the latch was like a gunshot in the tombstone silence. She couldn’t know that he was here.

He needed a plan. A real one, this time. One that had at least a remote chance of success.

He sealed all the doors on his way out.


	21. Twenty-One

The long way round wasn’t fun. The long way round _sucked_ , really. But the long way round was the only option left to him; the only way he could be anything even close to confident that his good intentions weren’t paving him a road to misery. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to race across the wasteland and pull her from that cryo pod like he was her lifeline and she was his unwitting saviour – and shit, she _was._ He wanted it so badly he could hardly breathe – but Deacon knew he had to wait.

Twenty-two years were a whole lot fewer than two hundred and twelve. He could do this.

The first year was the hardest. ’65 was the year everything changed for Deacon; the year he bought his first pair of ten cap sunglasses and adopted a penchant for code phrases. Thinking about it still made him _furiously_ angry; filled him with the kind of rage that burned so deep and cold in his chest it was a wonder he didn’t freeze solid. ’65 was the year that the Deathclaws killed Barbara.

Deacon could barely remember what Barbara looked like, now, but they’d strung her up from a tree with freshly budded leaves. He knew it happened in the spring - and spring was fast approaching. Deacon’s first instinct was to get as far away as possible; to put as much distance between himself and the past as he could manage with no disguise and tattered shoes. But he couldn’t do that. There was another _him_ out there, tilling a field or milking a cow or doing something equally domestic. Once Barbara was dead, that other man’s path was set.

And Deacon couldn’t have that.

He approached them in their field one day, with a wide-brimmed hat tipped forward to shade his face. Deacon wasn’t worried about being recognised – he’d changed his face so many times his own maker wouldn’t recognise him – but causality was looking over his shoulder again, and it was making him jumpy. It took him two or three tries just to leave the shelter of the city limits and wander down the hill to the farm. He found himself repeating the same words over and over again inside the echo chamber of his skull.

_No other choice. No other choice. No other choice._

He could see them standing outside their tiny farmhouse. John and Barbara; Barbara and John. The sight of that farmhouse silhouetted by the afternoon sun sent chills up Deacon’s spine. He’d set it on fire when he left. He remembered _that_ , all right. Vividly.

Barbara was pretty. She had blonde hair and a nice smile. John was young – _Jesus_ , he was young. He was country-boy handsome, too, with sunburned skin, scattered freckles and a big, dopey grin. He had hair the same colour as the carrots in the field. Everything seemed to warp in and out of focus when Deacon looked at them. It was like looking into one of those creepy mirrors at a fairground. It was like looking at ghosts.

And the ghosts were looking right back. They were _smiling._

John was the first to greet him. “Hey, pal. What brings you out here?” His tone was friendly, but the shotgun in his hand was not. He held it loosely, at least, and the smile didn’t look strained yet.

Deacon wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He wanted to turn and run. Jesus Christ – was he really about to have a conversation with _himself?_

He tried to make his voice a little deeper; dropped the _buddies_ and _pals_ and _mans_. “Mister. Ma’am. I’ve come with a warning.”

He was sure that the universe just _had_ to be keeping a sucker punch in store for situations like this one, and he was waiting for it to knock him flat. But nothing happened.

So Deacon started talking.

He had a speech prepared, and he made it through without a single stumble. It took some convincing, but they eventually agreed to leave. D.C. was nice this time of year. You could drink the water there – or you’d be able to _eventually_ , anyway. Deacon slipped them some stolen caps to see them on their way, because not even he could convince a couple to uproot their lives on a cryptic warning and a heartfelt appeal. He helped them pack their things, too, and gifted Barbara his hat for the journey. She thanked him with a smile and a blown kiss while her husband rolled his eyes in mock frustration. Deacon expected his heart to lurch.

But it didn’t.

Deacon stood at the base of the hill to watch them leave. He kept waiting for causality to smite him; for the world to implode as they disappeared over the horizon. But so far, so good. He felt more or less okay – if more than a little bit _old._ He did love Barbara once. That freckly kid with the goofy grin loved her still.

Alex and Charmer might be one and the same, but Deacon and John D were not. Maybe they never had been.

Deacon still put on a convincing impression of a grief-induced rampage when the Deathclaws came knocking. He felt a little weird about it, because this time the killing was _calculated_ – but he got over it quickly enough when the bullets started flying.

He accepted the Rairoad’s invitation in his younger self’s place.

\---

The first year was the hardest, but the rest weren’t easy either. After ’65 came ’66 - and his first Institute assault on Railroad HQ. No, that wasn’t right. _Assault_ didn’t describe the slaughter; didn’t do justice to the blood that slicked the stairwells or the internal organs that were suddenly made _external_. It was a massacre. It was Deacon’s first encounter with a Courser, and he remembered hoping it would be his last.

Look how well _that_ turned out.

Inserting himself back in his old life like this was just setting himself up for more pain. Deacon knew that, and he’d have liked to think he was used to pain by now – but this was on another level. He could see it looming ahead of him like a roadblock; a wall built with the wreckage of burned safe houses and the corpses of Railroad agents. Wyatt, Tommy Whispers and Glory; High Rise, Dutchman and Blackbird; countless runners and heavies and synths. They’d all go to their deaths in the years ahead.

Deacon had the power to stop it. He knew when the attacks would happen. He knew _how_ they’d happen. He knew where the Institute, the bigots and the Brotherhood would strike. He knew what routes to avoid, what precautions to take and what assets to protect. Jesus, the number of tragedies he could avert was _staggering_. It made his head spin. It made his mouth go dry.

But he knew that if he acted, _everything_ might change. And Deacon wouldn’t risk that.

He _couldn’t_ risk that.

It was hard to remember how little he was supposed to know. He helped Wyatt pull the Railroad back together in ’66, and he even made sure to ask for volunteers to make a run for the old files. He knew he’d get no takers, but it was about appearances now. It was about convincing the universe that nothing had changed; that it could ignore the guy with the sunglasses and the constantly changing face, because all of this had happened before. And if Deacon sometimes threw in a couple of suggestions, like _hey, maybe we should start using dead drops_ or _hey, let’s keep the location of HQ on the down low for now_ , the universe didn’t seem to mind.

He started collecting those awful Grognak comics. He convinced the rest of HQ it was due to each issue’s singular and radiant vision – but he’d always had trouble believing his own press.

He had to let the Institute get Wyatt, eventually. There was no getting around that. Causality would _know_. But he got the others out when the Coursers burned HQ down around them, and he didn’t interfere when Pinky Thompson took the wheel. He even went quietly when he got kicked out of HQ for a while. It would have been a blessing to get away from Pinky, honestly, but out in the open air it was far too tempting to turn his face northwest; to give up resisting, and let his feet take him where they wanted. He visited the Capital Wasteland instead, just to spite that ache in his chest and its constant pulling and tugging and _yearning_ – but then he came back, and the wheel of destruction kept spinning.

Deacon would have liked to say he lost count of all the people they lost, or that he forgot how many different HQs went down in flames. But he didn’t. Trinity, the Farm, the Beast. Bolthole. The Switchboard. They were all synonymous with massacres that Deacon could have stopped.

But he didn’t.

Then ’86 hit, and he couldn’t wait any longer. He spent less and less time at HQ, and more and more time huddled up beneath a ramshackle rain shelter near the vault. He knew it was more than a little pathetic to be _waiting_ for her like this – especially when he knew she wasn’t going to show for another year – but keeping watch made him feel better, somehow; like if causality decided to sucker punch him this late in the game, he might at least see it coming. When Dez asked about it, he said he was working on a special project. _Project Wanderer._ He hoped she didn’t see the way it made his gut twist.

When ’87 rolled around, it was like time and space went into overdrive. Things moved too fast; distances stretched out like he was standing on the edge of existence. He obsessed over the tiny details. Had the implants changed anything about his skin? His teeth? His (lack of) hair?

He wanted to get his face exactly right. Deacon couldn’t _be_ the same man he’d been back in that other lifetime, but he could sure as hell look like it.

He didn’t have the nerve to watch her leave the vault. He could feel causality breathing down the back of his neck far too eagerly for that. Back in that other lifetime, Deacon had first clapped eyes on her in Bunker Hill; barely a week after she left the vault. So that’s where he kept watch. He spent the last week of October in complete agony; hovered around the Hill with unsteady hands and clammy skin until a vision in vault suit blue appeared at the gate.

Jesus, his heart _ached_ to look at her – but he couldn’t go over to her. Not yet. Because even though Deacon met _Charmer_ in the smoky Bunker Hill marketplace, Charmer didn’t meet _Deacon_ until Dez had her at gunpoint under the Old North Church. If Deacon’s past self were standing beside him right now, he would have slapped him. Why hadn’t he at least said hello? He could deal with the caravan guard disguise. He could deal with not being able to tell her his name. But why hadn’t he _at least_ said hello?

Alex smiled at him as she passed, and Deacon’s heart dropped right down into his boots. No – _through_ his boots; through the cracked stones beneath his feet; right down into the earth, where it took root like a buried seed. He was stuck. He couldn’t breathe. He _had_ to say something.

Something like _Alex, baby, I love you._

“Hey,” he grunted.

She nodded in greeting. “Hey.”

And the universe didn’t collapse. Still, Deacon’s heartbeat was irregular even after she went on her way; even after she left, and Bunker Hill’s bustle faded into unimportance.

He waited for her in Diamond City, next, hiding behind a guard uniform and a cigarette. His hand wobbled when he heard her voice come in over Sullivan’s PA, and he scattered ash all over his boots. He watched from around the corner while she sweet-talked Piper and the mayor. She gave Deacon a long, appraising look before she wandered up into the stands, and he couldn’t help but think she saw right through him.

Their next ‘meeting’ was in Goodneighbor. They were standing in the square beneath Hancock’s little stage, bobbing in a sea of worshipful drifters as the mayor made one of his impromptu speeches.

“What kind of twisted, un-neighborly boogeyman would want to hurt our peaceful community?”

Deacon had been psyching himself up for his line from the second he saw her. “Yeah, the Institute and their synths!”

Alex shot him a sideways look from between the milling ghouls. Her frown was just a little too thoughtful, and her gaze was just a little too searching. She didn’t join in when the citizens started their catch cry, but Deacon did; loudly, wholeheartedly, like he could stave off that sucker punch if he could just make her _believe._

“Of the people, for the people!”

It was a relief when she disappeared into the crowd. He spotted her entering the state house a few minutes later, and his heart started beating another tattoo against his ribs. _Come back_ , it seemed to say.

_Alex, baby, I love you._

Deacon’s tired heart was getting ready to give out by the time she finally walked the Freedom Trail – and hell, he figured that not even the cruellest universe could be mad if he made the HQ password just a _little_ too easy. He timed his entrance perfectly, but Dez still glared at him when he interrupted her little interrogation.

“Deacon – where’ve you been?”

Charmer was watching him over Dez’s shoulder, apparently completely unperturbed by all the guns pointed her way. Deacon’s knees felt weak.

“You’re having a party. What gives with my invitation?”

Dez ignored that. “I need intel. Who is this?”

“Wow. News flash, boss –“

Fuck, what had he said the last time she was here? Deacon’s brain was stuck on a replay of _Alex, Charmer, Alex, Charmer,_ and he didn’t want to play Desdemona’s game. He wanted to rush over and throw himself at Charmer’s feet; open the floodgates and let loose whatever apologies or promises or lies or truths bubbled to the surface first.

Then Alex smiled at him; suddenly, inexplicably, and it kicked his brain back into gear.

“- this lady is _kind of_ a big deal out there.”

“Have we met?” Alex asked. She tilted her head slightly as she spoke, her hair swinging down to brush her shoulder.

_I cut my hair off because he made me mad. He liked it long._

_She tied me to a bedpost with her scarf, once. We couldn’t get it undone again, but she wouldn’t let me cut myself free. She stole my pocket knife and everything._

She was watching him curiously. Had she noticed the stiffness in his shoulders? Could she see the way his hands were trembling? “You seem very familiar.”

“Who, me? Nah. I’ve just got one of those faces.”

\---

It was hard to remember what to say and when to say it. The man Deacon was _supposed_ to be was a free fucking spirit compared to the man Deacon was now - and the man Deacon was now knew things that he wasn’t supposed to know. He messed it up sometimes; called her ‘sugar’ in the wrong places; kissed her a bit too deeply, or a bit too longingly – and he always worried that _this time_ might be the time causality decided to even the scores. Charmer was different sometimes, too. There was an extra layer of sadness wrapped around her gentle smiles; a few extra tears in those times she thought she was alone. But there were extra smiles too, and extra jokes; extra stories about a coffee shop she used to frequent, and the friend who taught her how to use an espresso machine.

For a while, Deacon managed to convince himself that he’d won. Charmer was alive – and they were happy _._ But time was _just_ linear enough, and that morning in an isolated cabin eventually rolled around again.

\---

Charmer sighed softly. “Morning.” She stretched so widely Deacon could hear her joints crack. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the mottled light sneaking through the gaps in the ceiling. “Did you sleep well?”

Deacon’s heart was in his throat. He’d stuck to his ‘original’ face this time around; the one that Charmer had fallen in love with - so the conversation was already following a different path. Causality _had_ to catch up with him soon. He’d wink out of existence any time now.

But it hadn’t happened yet. He raised an eyebrow in the meantime, totally deadpan. “Who can sleep with a freight train roaring along next to them?”

Charmer glowered, totally oblivious to how gleefully Deacon’s heart was singing. She missed the fearful descant, too. “I don’t snore, Dee.”

“How would you even know?”

“I’ve been married.” She rubbed her eyes groggily. “What time is it?”

“No idea. You’re the one with the fancy Pip-Boy.” She caught it with one hand when he threw it at her.

“Fuck. We were meant to be half way back to Mercer by now.” She scrambled off the mattress to find her boots, swearing under her breath when she only found one. “Have you seen my other shoe?”

“Outside, I think.” Deacon crawled half way out of bed to snag her by the hips and pull her back down. She shrieked in feigned outrage and swatted at his chest. Deacon’s skin was hot and cold; ice and boiling water; so tight he could feel his cheeks crack when he smiled. He couldn’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop – metaphorically, of course. Surely Isaac Newton was about to strike him dead. “Five more minutes,” he whispered into her hair.

He knew they had to leave. Five minutes early meant they’d have five extra minutes on the Brotherhood. But it was _hard_. What if these five minutes were all they’d ever get?

“Caretaker will have a breakdown if we’re late. And Shaun’s waiting for me.”

Deacon sighed. “You’re right.”

She didn’t move away immediately. When she spoke, it was softly. “I get serious deja vu when you hold me like this.”

Deacon’s throat constricted. “Because of Nate?”

“No.” Her shoulders went rigid. “Nate wasn’t much of a cuddler. Sorry – I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She turned to look at him, searching his face for something she didn’t want to see.

“I’m not the jealous type, sugar.” He kissed her forehead, just to drive the point home. “And I love secrets.”

Charmer chuckled weakly. “Well...anyway, I wasn’t talking about Nate. Someone else. You would have liked him. He was a smart ass too.” She gave him a look that was just a little too thoughtful; a little too guilty; a little too ashamed that she’d given two lovers the same nickname, and Deacon knew it was time to go. He should tell her. He knew he should.

But not right now.

\---

The walk into the city wasn’t so arduous this time around. The sun wasn’t so high in the sky, and a slight breeze tickled Deacon’s neck as they walked. Charmer snatched the Minuteman’s hat out of his hand and donned it with a flourish, offering her widest grin and her best _much obliged, partner._ Deacon grumbled good-naturedly and unwound her scarf from around her neck. She only fluttered her eyelashes at him, tilting her head slightly to allow him better access. Deacon wrapped the scarf over his head and tied it under his chin. There were definite downsides to being bald – in the sunburn department, anyway.

“Suits you,” Charmer said with a smirk.

“See, you say that like you’re joking – but the joke’s on you, ‘cause this look is _totally_ on trend.”

Jesus, he was so nervous. It felt like he’d had an appendectomy when he wasn’t looking; like someone had ripped out a couple of his internal organs and replaced them with jars of butterflies.

Charmer stopped in her tracks. “What’s that? It looks like a railsign… but kind of weird.”

The butterfly jars shattered, and adrenaline flooded through him. “That’s ‘cause it _looks_ like a railsign, but it isn’t. Ally sign mixed with the danger sign? Definitely a trap.”

She threw him a withering look. “Definitely? I don’t think so. Could be we just have a tourist with a crappy memory. Look, there’s a pointer up ahead.”

Deacon’s throat was more than a little scratchy. “Let’s find a good vantage point and wait it out, sugar. There’s trouble coming our way for sure.”

“How do you know?” She was frowning, but she wasn’t angry or frustrated – just bemused. And _far_ too curious.

“Hey, you trust me, right?”

She snorted softly and shrugged.

“Good answer.” He forced a grin; tried desperately to make it look natural. “Come on, I’ve got just the place.”

They climbed up onto the nearest rooftop and set up shop there, though Charmer’s lips remained twisted into an unsatisfied, quizzical line the whole while. Deacon piled up debris around them to form something of a makeshift sniper’s nest, and it was when he lay down on his belly and started lining up grenades for easy access that Charmer finally lost her patience.

“Seriously, Dee – what the hell are you not telling me?”

Deacon was saved from responding by the arrival of the first team of Brotherhood knights. Charmer’s eyes widened when she saw them, and she immediately dropped to her belly too, wriggling up beside him to peer cautiously over the lip of the roof. There were three of them, just like before, clanking through the streets with their tactical helmet lights aglow and their gauss rifles at the ready.

“What are _they_ doing here?” Charmer whispered.

“Whatever they have in mind,” Deacon muttered, “I’m pretty sure it’s not good.”

“Let’s take ‘em out.” There was a time Charmer had tried to work with the Brotherhood; tried, despite Deacon’s arguments and eye rolls, to peel back their hulking metal death suits and find some goodness beneath. That all ended after they tried to kill the synths in Bunker Hill; when they _did_ kill Glory. “You ready?”

Deacon’s hands were steady. Odd, that. “Ready.”

Charmer took out their helmetless leader with a shot through his forehead. He died instantly, his head flopping forward like a rag doll’s, but his armour kept him upright. The other two knights paused for a fatal second, wondering what had happened. Deacon managed to hit one of their fusion cores – again. Thank _you_ , causality. The entire trio was swallowed up by a nuclear explosion, leaving nothing but charred power armour and scattered ash behind.

Charmer let out a low whistle. Deacon’s heart was hammering so hard he barely heard it. “Now _that’s_ a precision strike.”

“Thank you, thank you. Please, hold the applause. I’m here all week.”

Charmer pushed herself upright and adjusted her hat. She was already moving to clamber down the fire escape when Deacon seized her by the waistband of her jeans.

“Hang on. There’s got to be more of them.”

She threw a puzzled look over her shoulder. “What makes you say that? They move in threes. That’s like – that’s like a _rule_.”

“Call it a hunch.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” She shook his hand loose and turned to face him, arms folded. Her frown wasn’t the kind you messed around with. “Cut the shit.”

Deacon swallowed. There was a lump in this throat that was proving kind of hard to talk around. “Come on – fake railsigns? No way they only sent three knights to take us out.”

He could almost hear Charmer grinding her teeth. “Come _on_ , Dee. You’ve been acting weird all morning. I _know_ there’s more to it, so you can quit lying to me.” She was breathing faster than normal, though she’d barely lifted a finger during the fight – and it made Deacon’s own breath catch in his throat. It was total insanity, but he couldn’t help but think it was causality playing catch up; letting her get in her extra breaths now, because she wouldn’t be able to take them later.

_You gotta breathe, baby. Please breathe._

“It’s a long story, sugar. A _really_ long story. Just trust me, okay? There _will_ be more of them.”

Charmer reached for the fire escape again – but she stopped. It wasn’t without some grumbling, but she lay down beside him again and rested her head against her forearms. “You are so full of shit,” she muttered. But she twined one of her arms through his.

Deacon was lightheaded with fear. This was it.

The next group arrived a few minutes later, and Deacon’s breath left him in a rush. It was no wonder the ambush in the warehouse had been so overwhelming the last time around; there were at least a half dozen knights down there, kitted out in full power armour, and a trio of scribes as well. The vanguard called out when he spotted the charred power armour remnants up ahead. Deacon heard Charmer inhale sharply as she fumbled for her pistol.

“Holy shit,” she whispered. “They can’t just be after us. Even _we’re_ not that special.”

Deacon nodded. _They’re after a time machine, sugar. Yeah, you heard me right. A time machine that can take you back to before the war. A time machine that can take you back to Nate. Sorry for not mentioning this sooner._

“Thoughts?” Charmer nudged him with her elbow. “I’m thinking we should just slink away.”

Deacon was inclined to agree. Mitch was waiting like a sitting duck in his warehouse, sure – and sure, he was crazy, unarmed and defenceless. Sure, Deacon had the opportunity to help him; to return one of the favours Mitch had done him over the years. If not for Mitch, Deacon would still be paralysed. Wait, no – he’d be _dead_ , or irradiated into insanity, probably lying forgotten in the depths of the CIT ruins. But he was lying on a sunny rooftop instead, Charmer was lying beside him, and she was _alive._ If they snuck away now, she’d stay that way.

_Maybe I should just let him die._

So what if the Brotherhood got their hands on Mitch’s machine? They couldn’t stop the war anymore than Deacon could; anymore than Mitch could; anymore than _anyone_ could. Humanity’s destiny was destruction. It always had been. It always would be.

But they _could_ mess things up pretty badly if they set their minds to it. After all, they might work out how to change the machine’s destination date. Even if they couldn’t stop the war, they could probably stop some other things. Maybe they’d stop the Institute. Maybe they’d stop the Railroad. Maybe they’d stop Charmer.

Deacon’s heartbeat was beating Morse code against his ribs again. His whole body was _screaming_ at him to shut his fucking mouth. But the trouble with being good at telling lies is that it makes you pretty good at _recognising_ lies, as well – so Deacon always knew when he was lying to himself.

“Nah,” he breathed. “Whatever they’re doing down there, I think we’d better put a stop to it.”

Charmer sighed softly. “All right. Wish I’d brought the fat man.” She rolled her shoulders and picked up a grenade, gesturing for him to do the same. “Throw, shoot, and keep your head down.”

“Let me take point on this one –“

But she was already pulling the pin, throwing, _firing_ , and Deacon scrambled to the same. She took down a scribe before the grenade even went off, and his two lightly armoured fellows managed to scatter in time to survive the blast – but one of the knights wasn’t so lucky. The explosion shattered one leg of his power armour, and whatever parts of his limb survived the initial blast were fountaining enough blood to guarantee he wouldn’t last much longer. Deacon’s grenade took another two knights out of action, and suddenly the odds were looking considerably better.

Charmer chuckled darkly. “Bastards.”

One of the knights finally looked up. “On the rooftop! Someone get up that fire escape!”

Deacon ducked as laser fire whizzed by his ear. He glanced sideways, suddenly terrified of what he’d find. But Charmer was fine. She aimed down her pistol sight, pulled the trigger – and a second scribe went down, his skull reduced to a splatter of blood and bone on the pavement. One of the knights below screamed in rage and unleashed a barrage in Charmer’s direction, but she’d ducked down behind Deacon’s makeshift barrier. The fire escape was shuddering under the clanking footfalls of a knight they couldn’t see.

Charmer shot Deacon a determined look. “Gonna drop that grenade on him, or are you gonna push someone in full power armour off the roof?”

“Option A.” Deacon had had a very, very long time to perfect his grenade lobbing skills. He tossed a grenade at precisely the right angle; listened to it clatter down the stairs before it exploded with a satisfying _BOOM_. From the sound of the ensuing shrieks – both metallic and human – it seemed a section of the fire escape had come away from the wall. One of the two remaining knights on the ground shouted something as his comrade hit the earth, and his voice was too grief-stricken for Deacon’s victim to have survived. Deacon had become a very good judge of that sort of thing.

“Two to go,” Charmer hissed quietly.

“Think they’ll give up if we ask nicely?”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“AD VICTORIAM!” One of the knights shouted – and suddenly there was a grenade heading for the rooftop.

Charmer swore. Deacon swore too. They made a break for the only shelter - a decrepit, crumbling chimney stack – and huddled behind their measly protection, breathing hard in the split-second silence. Deacon knew it was a bit of a pointless gesture, but he made sure his body was shielding Charmer.

Waiting for that explosion seemed to take longer than all his endless years put together.

It hit them like a – well, like a grenade. The world was suddenly nothing but ear-splitting noise and _pain_ ; white-hot but somehow icy cold. Deacon was dimly aware of Charmer stabbing him with a stimpak and gasping something that sounded like _fuck, Dee, look at me_. It took a few moments for his vision to stop swimming; for the world to settle back into a pattern that made some sense.

Charmer was pale and wide-eyed. Her hand shook when she reached out to touch his arm.

“Are you okay?” Deacon blurted.

She made a little noise of disbelief. “I’m fucking _fine._ What about you?”

He wriggled his arms and flexed his knees. He tilted his head from side to side. “Looks like all the parts are working. Thanks.”

Her sudden smile was fierce and bright. “Let’s catch them by surprise.” She dropped to her belly again and stole across the rooftop like a cat with a ten millimetre. Deacon followed, somewhat less gracefully, and carefully peered over the edge of the roof.

One of the knights was kneeling beside a fallen peer, peeling back power armour plates like bloodied bandages. The other knight had discarded his damaged helmet and was peering up at the rooftop, his rifle at the ready. He gave a warning cry when he spotted Charmer’s head poking over the lip of the roof – but her bullet in his forehead silenced him quickly enough. The only man left glanced around helplessly, and Deacon could almost hear the words that must be running through his head.

_Orders are always to scuttle suits rather than let them fall into enemy hands._

He was proven right when the knight rolled his comrade’s corpse over and fired point-blank at his fusion core.

Deacon and Charmer were left blinking dumbly in a cloud of ash. The silence that settled over the scene was sudden, but pulsating, like Deacon’s ears were still fighting off the explosion. Jesus, it would be a wonder if he didn’t wake up deaf tomorrow. He tapped a hand gently against the side of his head, hoping he might be able to knock something back into place – and it was then that it hit him.

He glanced at Charmer. She was alive. He was alive. He’d done it.

Holy _shit_. He’d done it!

Deacon gave a choking laugh, and Charmer gave a _real_ one, full of giddy, adrenaline-fuelled disbelief. She staggered to her feet, dusted herself off and beamed at him. The falling ash scattered the sunlight around her like she was some sort of goddess of war; a goddess of death and renewal and goddamn resurrection. She placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head, her hair swinging down to brush her shoulder. Deacon was sure his heart was going to explode with joy.

“Well,” she chuckled, “that was a work out. You’re pretty sexy when you save my life, by the way –“

A gunshot rang out. Charmer staggered. Her hand flew up to her collarbone and her brow furrowed in confusion. Deacon’s heart stopped dead in his chest.

There was a scribe kneeling at the top of the fire escape; a single, lowly scribe, a wobbling ten millimetre clutched in his shaking hands. Charmer had time to turn and put a bullet between his eyes before she fell backwards into Deacon’s arms.

_Oh god._

_Oh god oh god oh god oh god_.

Deacon lowered her to the ground and fumbled for a stimpak. His fingers felt suddenly cold and useless; nerveless, like this final blow was too much for his mind to take. It wasn’t possible to cram this much suffering inside one person’s chest. His heart was going to break in two like a splitting atom, and it was going to destroy him.

Charmer couldn’t hold her head up. He brushed her hair out of the way with shaking fingers and jammed the stimpak in her neck. Her breath was coming shallow and fast, and she clutched at Deacon’s shirt feebly.

“Dee-“ She broke off, breathless and pale.

Deacon seized her hand and held it fast. He could feel her heartbeat through her wrist, staccato and frantic and weak, and his own heart crowded up against his windpipe like it intended to hold him hostage; like if she went, _he_ went, and there was nothing his cybernetically-enhanced self could do about it.

He couldn’t speak. His lungs wouldn’t expand. His heart refused to beat. He couldn’t go on; not without Charmer. Not without Alex.

_You gotta breathe, baby. Please breathe._

He couldn’t do it again.

Charmer’s eyes fluttered closed, and Deacon felt the world collapsing.

Then she took a deep, shuddering breath – shakily, desperately, _finally_. Deacon could have broken down and cried as her colour slowly returned; sobbed like a drowning man brought to shore as her breathing evened out and she squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Thank god for stimpaks,” she groaned.

Deacon snorted – or maybe it was a sob. “ _Fuck_ , Alex, you’ve got to stop doing this to me.”

She smiled groggily. “Have we done this before?”

He didn’t answer. He _couldn’t_ answer, so he kissed her instead. When she put both hands on the back of his head to hold him to her, he finally started to believe she’d be okay.

\---

They waited a few hours before departing. Charmer wanted to be absolutely sure there were no more Brotherhood forces lying in wait, and Deacon wanted to be sure she was strong enough to be moved. He kept a careful watch on the streets below while Charmer rested, scouring every corner and every hideaway for even the slightest hint of danger. He’d _done it_ – but he wouldn’t feel safe until they made it back to Mercer.

He kept an eye out for Mitch, as well. Charmer appeared to have let the wonky railsign go, but Deacon wouldn’t be able to distract her if a time travelling madman showed up. _Another_ time travelling madman, anyway. He wondered what would become of Mitch, lurking down in his lonely basement; alone with his incredible machine. Maybe he’d go back to 2075. Maybe he’d try to save the world.

A tiny, _insane_ voice in Deacon’s head muttered that he should try to help Mitch. He owed the man more than a few favours. But Deacon knew the world was beyond saving - the pre-war world, anyway – and he knew that Mitch would never accept that. _This one_ , though – this one still had hope.

Charmer looked a lot better after she devoured a few of their fancy lads for lunch, and they set off for Mercer not long after. Caretaker was waiting for them at the perimeter, his gnarled hands curled tight around a rusty-looking shotgun. Deacon could smell hot Mirelurk cakes and freshly brewed instant coffee in the air.

 “Where have you _been_?” Caretaker snapped. He was shaking like a dead tree in a strong breeze – and Deacon hoped to god the old agent’s gun had its safety on.

“Sorry!” Charmer called to him. There was laughter in her voice, though, so she couldn’t have been _that_ sorry. “We got a little held up.”

“ _Mom!”_ A firecracker with red hair burst from the nearest doorway with a bang and a holler and charged across the grass like a mom-seeking missile. Shaun threw himself at Charmer and wrapped his arms around her waist, beaming with the boundless affection only a lonely ten year old can muster. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Hey, kiddo!” Charmer bent at the waist to kiss the top of his head, brushing a clump of dirty red hair back from his forehead.

Shaun had _always_ had red hair. That was what Deacon told himself, anyway. But there was this weird tightness in Deacon’s chest, like his DNA knew something he didn’t – or like it didn’t matter either way.

The kid craned his neck to look up at Charmer. “Did you bring me that thing I asked for?”

“Of course I did,” she replied. Her smile was like sunlight. She was the same as she’d always been, but she was different as well. And all of it – Jesus, _all of it_ – made Deacon want to gather her up in a bear hug and never let go.

Sure, he knew things about her that he wasn’t supposed to know. There was a gulf between them now, at least from where Deacon was standing, and there was only one way to close it – even though Deacon had never been much good at telling the truth. It would be hard, and it would probably be painful. It might even be dangerous; Deacon had never figured out how space and time were supposed to work. Maybe there weren’t any rules at all. But he’d crossed centuries for her, and lying to her was starting to feel an awful lot like lying to himself.

He was caught off guard when Shaun raced over to hug him as well. His heartbeat stuttered and he blinked down at the kid dumbly as Charmer’s laughter broke out across the way. He managed to pat Shaun on the head awkwardly.

“Hey, buddy. What’d you get up to while your mom and I were away?”

Shaun released him, and Deacon’s knees almost buckled in relief. “I built some stuff. You wanna see?”

“Sure,” Deacon squeaked. Shaun raced off, seized his mother’s hand and dragged her towards the nearest shed, chattering gaily all the while. Deacon followed in something of a daze.

“Deacon is so cool,” he could hear Shaun enthusing. “And tough! I bet my dad was like him.”

It was a wonder Deacon didn’t lose his footing. He came close, though. Very close.

Charmer paused in the doorway and let Shaun run ahead, his little footsteps almost soundless on the rough floorboards. “Thanks for indulging him, Dee.” There was something about the way her brows quirked as she said it, like some tiny part of her was wondering at the similarities between the two men she’d given that name to; Schrodinger’s cat sniffing coffee beans on the wind and recognising that two separate realities couldn’t and _shouldn’t_ meet.

But causality could kiss his ass.

Deacon didn’t know how long his implants would hold out. He didn’t know how long he had. Hell, he didn’t know how long either of them had. But even though all of this was probably only temporary, he was going to make it count. His whole world was watching him from beneath lowered eyelashes and a stupid Minuteman’s hat, and there was nothing and no one in two hundred years -

“Alex, baby, I love you.” Deacon kissed her swiftly, and she actually had the audacity to look surprised – like she hadn’t realised by now just how stupidly in love he was.

But then she smiled. She was Alex, she was Charmer, and she was everything Deacon had ever needed. “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL. I can't quite believe that's over, and I can't quite believe how long it ended up becoming.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for sticking with me through all of that (if you're still here, of course!). I really hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love it if you could comment to let me know what you think.
> 
> It's been a hell of a ride!


End file.
